The government's original analogue switch-off date of 2010 may be achievable after all according to new research commissioned by BSkyB.
Despite growing gloom among digital television operators over the slowing subscriber growth rate, the research indicates that half of all those expressing "low intention" to get digital television wanted it once they had seen it in action.
All of those in the sample were given a one hour demonstration of Sky Digital, ITV Digital and cable digital services before being asked for their impressions.
SkyDigital was the preferred provider among the 300 consumers who took part in the study, with 64% claiming that it would be their platform of choice, followed by digital cable and then ITV Digital.
"The more people see digital TV, the more they want it. So we think the 2006 -2010 switch-off target is achievable," said Ricky Baxter of Marketing Direction, the independent research company that conducted the study.
Sky has also signed a range of deals with content providers including Yahoo! and Cartoon Network as it continues to develop its recently relaunched Sky Active interactive services.
It has tied up deals with Yahoo! and Demon Internet to allow their users to email from within the Sky Active service.
The email service was one of the key planks of Sky's interactive strategy when it first launched as Open, but this is the first time that users of other email services have been able to use the same address to send emails onscreen.
The company is looking to seal deals with other email providers and add a chat facility and the ability to send messages between all SkyDigital subscribers before the end of the year.
Cartoon Network has teamed up with Sky to launch a branded games area based on characters from the channel.
Sky Active was relaunched at the beginning of this month after BSkyB took full control of the Open service and set about integrating it into its broadcast channels.
It has sought to move away from a shopping based approach towards tasks such as gaming and betting that can gain incremental revenue at the same time as viewers are watching programmes.
Its biggest successes among consumers so far have been simple pay-to-play games such as Tetris, which has attracted 3.3m players, and interactive votes and quizzes on Sky News and Sky Sports.
