This seems to be contrary to what we have been told, and to what is supposed to have occurred in Germany. But it does suggest that just maybe, migration to TV subscription services is just one of those trends that happens everywhere, in due time. Who knows. The reason why this decline is happening is not given, however it sure does contradict much of the loud proclamations made to this list, not to mention the cure-all virtues of COFDM. Who knows. Maybe what happens with Freeview is that people see how wonderful it is to get many more channels than before, which they experience because the service is still free, and all that does is encourage them to go for even more, cost be damned? If that's the case, I'd expect that a new equilibrium will then occur, maybe more on the order of 20 percent staying OTA, rather than 67 percent (UK) or 75 percent(Australia)? Bert -------------------------------------------- http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/news.php?class=countries&subclass=0&id=2115 Terrestrials 'to lose 13% of viewing' by switchover Terrestrial television channels are set to lose nearly 13% of their combined audience share by the 2012 digital switchover completion date, according to research commissioned by Broadcast magazine. Media analyst DGA examined how digital take-up has affected the viewing shares of BBC One, BBC Two, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five in recent years. Their current collective share of 67.3% is set to fall to 58.7%, with multi-channel brands taking 41.3% of all viewing. BBC Two is likely to suffer the biggest drop, from 8.9% to 7.3% by 2012. BBC One is expected to fall from 22.9% in 2006 to 20.3%, while ITV1 could drop from 20.1% to 17.8%. Channel 4 could be down by 14.5% to 8.2% while Five is predicted to fall from 5.8% to 5.1%. Meanwhile, UK marketing trade body the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) has released latest quarterly data showing a continuing decline in overall daily viewing, down from 3.42 hours at the end of Q3 2005 to 3.31 hours at the end of Q3 2006. The IPA analysis puts the five terrestrial channels on a 64.6% audience share, down from 69.5% in Q3 2005, and 73.1% in Q3 2004. "The major channels continue to suffer from the inexorable growth of the non-terrestrial channels, which have now reached a share of 35%," said the IPA. Lovelace Consulting 08.12.2006 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.