Freeview fans buy up second boxes

Almost 14 million homes now have some form of digital TV

More than a million UK households that already have digital TV have bought Freeview boxes for second television sets in their homes.

Almost 25% of all Freeview digital TV receivers sold from July to September were for houses that already had digital, media regulator Ofcom said.

Some 56% of British households, or 13.9 million homes, now have some form of digital TV.

Almost four million of those have Freeview while seven million get Sky.

"Overall sales of Freeview continue to increase - but around a quarter of new sales are going to homes that have already switched," Ofcom said.

Freeview is the fastest-growing form of digital TV, with 660,000 boxes sold in the three months to the end of September - 158,000 of which were for second or third TVs.

The government wants 100% of the UK population to switch to digital TV by the time they switch off the traditional analogue signal, probably in 2012.