Although the number of households worldwide with High Definition ready TV's grew by an impressive 25% in 2008 around a half of those households do not have access to or watch any high definition programmes.
In Europe the UK leads the way largely as a result of Sky's 800,000 HD subscribers. Freesat, the free-to-air satellite service offers a much smaller choice of HD programming with BBC HD and ITV HD, but has a significant 200,000 or so users which is growing rapidly. Virgin Media with around 400,000 subscribers to its V+ box, with access to the BBC HD channel takes the total in the UK to around 1.5m.
Across the whole of Europe there are less than 10m consumers with access to High Def programmes with the UK having more consumers with access to HD content greater than France and Germany combined.
Worldwide there are around 36m households with HD enabled TV's and some form of HD content to watch. Of around 39 million households in the US with an HDTV, only 22 million of those have access to and watch High Definition programming.
The slow High Definition take up is due largely to the fact that over 80% of available HD content is provided by satellite and cable companies.
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