Ofcom's Digital Television Update: 2005, Quarter 1

Ofcom's latest update on digital penetration puts the UK at around 62% digital, up 2.5% on the end of 2004.

Delving further into the stats also shows that the growth rates for pay-TV are just a bit lower, at only 1.2% on the last quarter - with that same figure being the individual growths for both Sky and the cablecos. Post Christmas is of course going to be a slow period.

Comparing with last years figures, another interesting note is that the number of free-to-view satellite users has almost doubled, from 231,000 in Q1, 2004 to 445,000 this time round.

Freeview is also, naturally, up with an estimated 5m homes now having a box - the platform's quickly closing the gap on Sky's 7.3m users.

But perhaps most depressingly of all, there are still a whopping 700,000 people who still have analogue cable... Maybe one day the cablecos will merge and get their networks sorted out properly. Well, we can dream.