Freeview scores with World Cup rugby

IN just one year, it has become one of the most successful consumer products ever launched. And as it celebrates its first anniversary this weekend, Freeview will be given a boost by the Rugby World Cup in Australia.

ITV will show about half the matches on digital channel ITV2. With a £70 Freeview set-top box, viewers can see this and 30 other digital channels through their rooftop aerials without paying a monthly subscription to the likes of Sky, NTL and Telewest.

More channels are planned, with US media giant Disney set to make its first move into mainstream British broadcasting, launching a general entertainment channel on Freeview.

An incredible 2.1 million consumers have already bought the set-top boxes.

Freeview - owned by the BBC, Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB and transmission company Crown Castle - looks set to reach about 2.5 million customers by the end of the year. And prices for the digital box are expected to fall to just £20.

Sky's involvement may strike some as strange, but the company says those who buy Freeview are not the kind of customers who sould be willing to pay for Sky.

Freeview customers tend to be viewers who have firmly resisted multi-channel life. Indeed, 80% of them have never considered buying cable or satellite television.