9 June 2006
Digital terrestrial television known as Freeview has now overtaken analogue television in the UK's living rooms.
According to Ofcom, almost 7.1 million households now have Freeview on the primary television, whereas 6.4 million still have traditional analogue television on the primary TV set.
It is the first time that Freeview has outnumbered analogue television and the regulator has said that people are switching to digital faster than predicted.
Ofcom's digital progress report, which looked at the first three months of 2006, found that digital television is now viewed by 72.5% of UK television households, or around 18.2 million people.
That was an increase from the 69.5% recorded art the end of last year.
"Take-up of digital television is growing faster than expected," the regulator said in a statement.
"Ofcom's last Digital Progress Report forecast that an extra 1.7 million homes would take-up digital television in 2006. By the end of March almost 800,000 extra households had already done so."
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