BSkyB’s share of the digital television market dropped in the second quarter of 2004 as Freeview continued its rapid growth against pay-TV satellite and cable providers.

Though BSkyB remains the dominant digital TV provider, its share fell to 53.5 percent from 55 percent, according to quarterly figures released by Ofcom today.

The number of Freeview households rose by 12 percent from the previous quarter to 4.4 million, or 28 percent of the market, far more than cable’s 2.5 percent gain and Sky’s 1.1 percent increase.

But this also marked a slowdown from the 18.6 percent growth the digital terrestrial service saw in the first quarter.

It is interesting to note that the take up of DTT services is slowing what with Ofcom embedding the December 31 2012 switchover date in its 3, 5, and teletext DRL’s earlier in the week. There is now a date for shifting non-digital households to digital services in time for analogue switchoff.