Freesat hoping to cash in on recession

While most of us are struggling to survive the credit crunch, Freesat at least seems to see it as a handy business opportunity. For in a press release we received this morning, Freesat was pushing its no-subscription charms hard by drawing on a new report from Continental Research which indicates that as many as 24% of subscription TV customers are considering reducing the amount they spend on their telly viewing.

To be fair, although we may have started this story sounding a bit cynical, there's no doubt that Freesat actually has a point for many 'mainstream' TV viewers. In fact, we have first-hand experience of a number of friends and relatives who are making the Sky-to-Freesat switch as we speak.

From the point of view of this HD-obsessed website, though, we have to say that the Freesat argument doesn't really hold water, on account of its service only having one and a half HD channels. This makes it a false economy for anyone who loves HD and has splurged out on an HD Ready TV.

Still, we certainly won't be complaining if Freesat's aggressive marketing in these cash-strapped times eventually forces Sky to nudge its HD pricing down a bit!