Britain goes digital media crazy

Posted on 12 Aug 2004 at 10:20

Britain is in the midst of a digital revolution. It seems that the UK can't get enough of digital media from broadband to digital television to mobile phones according to the communications watchdog Ofcom.

Figures for the communications at home show that while TV and radio usage per week has gone up slightly by two per cent and six per cent respectively, average dial up Internet usage per household went up from 19 minutes to 94 minutes per week between 1999 and 2004.

The growth of broadband is even more dramatic, rising from zero to three hours a week. Note that these are averages for all households. Ofcom reports that houses with broadband were actually using the service on average around 16 hours a week. The watchdog also says that broadband subscriptions are now running at around 50,000 a week compared with 40,000 a year ago. At this rate, its estimated that by mid-September there will be over 5 million broadband subscribers in the UK representing a third of households with Internet access. Ofcom records that Internet penetration reached 53 per cent of homes in February 2004 and 47 per cent of adults now say they use it on a daily basis.

Digital TV is also taking off in a big way. Either by cable, satellite or Freeview, 53 per cent of UK households have at least one digitally enabled television. This has led to big shift in the way TV companies make their money. For the first time ever, subscriptions revenues in the UK have overtaken advertising as the main source of income.

Forty three per cent of digital TV viewers use the red button to interact with their television with many using it at least once a week.

A whopping 86 per cent of households nowhave at least one mobile phone, with 21 per cent of people now considering their mobile as thei main phone. However, 3G services, although still in their infancy still have only a 2 per cent penetration.

New gadgets are also making a big impact. 45 per cent of adults said they owned a DVD player at the end of last year compared with just 5 per cent in 2000. MP3 players look as though they are likely to make a similar leap over the next few years. Whilst Ofcom does not have figures for the use of MP3 players, it notes that Apple says that 860,000 iPods were sold internationally in the second quarter of this year.

Author: Steve Malone