The freeview platform says it has overtaken Sky as the largest digital TV platform in the UK, according to the online media news service mediatel.co.uk. Their news service Newsline reports that 1.7m Freeview boxes were sold in the first quarter of 2007, of which 500,000 went to homes new to digital. The Freeview platform is now the main source of viewing in 8.2m homes in the UK, taking it past Sky for the first time.

Sky reported 8.4m homes in the UK and Ireland at the end of 2006, but this figure includes several hundred thousand homes in Ireland.

Freeview says it is now in 11 million homes in the UK, and its Xmas sales were the best ever. Freeview had been expected to pass Sky in the middle of 2007, but new research by GfK for Ofcom found that the data understated the number of homes who had bought a Freeview box as a second digital receiver.

Freeview has also announced that it will launch a PVR hard disc recorded; it projects that this will be in 12 million UK homes by 2012.