Freeview overtakes Sky

Freeview is now more popular than Sky, according to the company behind the digital terrestrial service.

At the end of March, 8.2 million UK homes received Freeview on their main television set. Sky announced at the end of 2006 it had almost 8 million subscribers. Cable provider Virgin Media currently has around 3 million customers.

Including secondary TV sets within households, Freeview said it is active in more than 11 million UK homes. Around 1.7 million digital boxes and integrated digital televisions were sold in the first quarter of 2007, with around half a million new households choosing the service as their primary TV source.

Available for five years, Freeview is available to customers by buying a set-top box or a digital TV set and receiving the free service through their existing television aerial.

In May, Freeview will launch its Freeview Playback box, a digital recorder which will allow customers to record, pause and rewind live TV. Though the service is already available on some set-top boxes, Freeview said it hopes the Playback boxes will be in more than 10 million homes by 2012.