For every 3D TV set sold in the UK in 2010, there were nearly ten times as many sales of Internet-enabled TVs – and 100 times as many HDTVs.
In total, Brits bought close to 10 million devices during the year (practically all of them HD-ready), of which nearly one million were connected TVs and only 125,000 offered 3D capability.
These figures appear in the latest edition of a yearly report published by telecoms regulator Ofcom, monitoring the country’s entire communications landscape. They also show that almost half (46%) of all households already incorporate at least one digital video recorder (DVR). In these households in 2010, time-shifted viewing accounted for 14% of all viewer hours.
The report found that over a fifth (22%) of games console owners are using these devices to watch video content. This includes 11% who claimed to have downloaded or streamed content from the web, and 19% who accessed content from the BBC iPlayer catch-up TV service.
Live TV programming is also increasingly being accessed via gaming consoles, especially by younger generations of players - 7% of those aged 16-24 versus 4% of all console owners.
Meanwhile, total revenue generated by UK television broadcasters in 2010 reached £11.7 billion, an increase of 5.7% over last year. According to Ofcom, such growth was driven by a combined recovery in advertising revenue (up 11.2%) and a 5.3% jump in subscription income.
