Freesat joint venture between ITV and BBC reaches the one million sales mark
FREESAT, the joint venture between ITV and BBC, announced yesterday that the subscription-free satellite service had reached the one million sales mark, after just 18 months in business.
The 250,000 additional sales since November means Freesat now holds 30 per cent of the market for all set top boxes sold in the UK.
Freesat is host to BBC HD and Al Jazeera News along with 151 other channels and radio stations.
Emma Scott, managing director of Freesat commented: “Hitting one million sales is a significant milestone for Freesat and gives us a great foundation for further growth, specifically with the millions of UK homes that have HD TVs but no HD service.”
John Cresswell, interim chief executive of ITV said yesterday: “We’re delighted with Freesat’s success – a million sales in less than two years is a terrific achievement. Freesat is an important distribution platform for ITV, providing our audiences with next generation free HD services and the capability for further development. We’re confident Freesat will continue to go from strength to strength.”
Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC added in a statement yesterday: “The development of Freesat has extended the choices available to viewers in allowing them to receive all of the BBC’s digital channels including BBC HD.