The latest figures from Ofcom reveal that there are over 900,000 households with a free satellite service in the UK. The news comes a month before Selkirk in the Scottish borders becomes the first region in the UK to switch to an all digital service.

The Communications Market: Digital Progress Report for the second quarter of 2008 shows around 840,000 homes were using free satellite - from BSkyB, BBC/ITV or other retailers - on their main television set. This was an increase of around 120,000 on the previous quarter.

In addition, between June and September BBC/ITV freesat sold a further 60,000 units, meaning that the total number of households using a free satellite service is now around 900,000.

However, in our view that's an unusual claim to make. Many homes with existing Freeview services are likely to have purchased Freesat products to upgrade to BBC HD and ITV's red-button HD access as the two showed Euro football games.

However, Ofcom's report also shows that 88 per cent of households now have digital TV on their main set.

The second quarter of 2008 showed that households remain focussed on switching their secondary television sets to digital as well. Over half (19.1 million) of the 35 million secondary sets have now been converted to digital.

(Continued on next page)