Of consumers aware of high definition television (HDTV) in the United Kingdom, the proportion of people likely to subscribe has jumped to 30 per cent, with 5 per cent of these saying they are almost certain to subscribe to HDTV, according to Continental Research's latest Digital TV Report.

Max Willey, Continental Research's head of media, said: "This is a large increase from the 17 per cent who last year said they were likely to subscribe to HDTV and probably reflects the fact that most TVs for sale now are HD-ready, and that Sky and Virgin Media (the only two HDTV subscription services available) have been heavily advertising their HD services.

"The overwhelming majority of adults who said they were likely to, or already do, subscribe to HDTV said they would subscribe to Sky's HDTV service (83 per cent). As Virgin Media (15 per cent) doesn't offer as many programmes in HD as Sky (currently it gives access to BBC HD and additional HD on demand) this is not a surprising result".