MUMBAI: As the BBC launches its latest digital marketing campaign targeted at analogue viewers yet to go digital it has announced that its six digital channels are performing strongly.

A company release informs that since the start of its digital campaign in October 2002 the digital market has grown by 32 per cent. Millions of more people are now able to watch the BBC's digital channels on cable, satellite and with Freeview.

BBC Three's share since launching in February 2003 has increased by 27 per cent for all viewers and by 38 per cent for the target audience (25-34) compared with last year.

The BBC also claims that since the fourth quarter of last year BBC Four has been out-performing all comparable specialist multichannels in terms of weekly reach. It leads the channel share along with Discovery.

Its share for the year to date is at 0.44 per cent. This represents an increase of 69 per cent on the same period last year. Between November 2003 and February 2004 BBC Four was able to reach more than one in five digital viewers each month. This amounts to over six million people.

As far the kids genre is concerned last month The CBBC Channel was second place among the non-preschool channels, with an average share of 3.8 per cent. In addition the release claims that CBeebies remains the market leader of children's TV with share in March 2004 holding steady at 7.3 per cent. This is more than double the second ranking preschool channel. BBC News 24 has seen an increase in reach of 16 per cent from 2002 to 2003 bringing total reach up to 4.2 million.

The last few months of 2003 saw one million set top box and integrated digital television sets sold for Freeview. The BBC claims that in December alone half a million boxes were sold. This ensured that digital terrestrial television became the second largest digital platform behind satellite.