LONDON: This could be the way India goes in a post-CAS environment - free to air channels leading growth in the satellite TV market. Multichannel and digital TV penetration are estimated to have increased to 48.6 per cent and 43.9 per cent of UK households respectively.

 
Free-to-air digital services (including both free-to-air digital terrestrial and satellite) have accounted for 60 per cent of the growth in the UK digital TV market since the launch of Freeview, This data is contained in the International Television Commision's (ITC) latest Multichannel Quarterly report. The data implies that one in five digital households are now free-to-air.

Overall the increase in digital penetration over the last quarter (January - March 2003) was attributable to the following key developments:

- Digital Terrestrial Transmission (DTT) showed substantial growth over the quarter reaching 1.6m DTT households

- Sky has added more than 143,000 paying subscribers, leading the pay TV market with 6.4 million UK households

- Cable also contributed to the growth in digital penetration by adding over 56,000 digital subscribers bringing the total number of digital cable homes to 2.1m.

The ITC's Multichannel Quarterly reports every three months on the take-up of both analogue and digital multichannel television in the UK.