Apparently only 15 per cent of people in the UK haven't embraced the delights of digital TV, according to the latest Ofcom report.

For those people who believe that the four and a half channels on offer are more than enough choice, time is running out as from 2008 the big analogue switch off starts.

According to figures from the Watchdog, the total number of multichannel households in the UK has reached 21.4 million homes, 85 per cent of the UK total. The figure is up 13 per cent over the year and the strongest 12 months' growth to date.

The Digital Television Progress Report for the second quarter of this year showed that digital terrestrial television accounted for 81 per cent (763,000) of the growth in the digital television market during the quarter.

Almost 1.9 million Freeview devices (this includes both set top boxes and integrated digital televisions) were sold during the quarter, up from 1.2 million in the second quarter of 2006. This was the fourth highest sales quarter so far for Freeview with 7.6 million units being sold over the past year compared to 5.4 million in 2006.The research found that 12.9 million homes are now viewing television on at least one Freeview device, an increase of around 1.2 million more than at the end of the previous quarter and 84 per cent of households now receive digital television services on their primary set, up 3.5 percentage points since March this year.

Digital and cable also showed modest gains in the number of subscribers. Almost 30 per cent (2.37 million) of all Sky customers subscribe to the Sky+ personal video recorder service, up from 2.17 million in the last quarter of 2006. For cable customers of the Virgin Media service almost 167,000 subscribers were using its personal video recorder service.

Chief Executive Ed Richards said: "More than four in five UK households are now enjoying the benefits of digital television. It's extremely encouraging that we are continuing to see the market grow strongly with less than a month until Whitehaven becomes the first place to fully switch to digital television."

Of course when the big switchover happens will we get more channels? And will they be just timeshift ones (We do hope not!)