Perhaps it's a knock on effect of the global rescession, but the latest report by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising has found that TV viewing is at the highest it has been in 18 years.
Viewers watched an average of 3.75 hours of TV a day last year, the highest figure since 1992, according to IPA research.
As one would expect to find, the first and last quarters of the year, with less daylight and fewer people away on holiday, tended to show the highest television viewing figures.
Interestingly, the IPA revealed that only 8.2 % of UK households relied on an analogue signal to catch their favourite shows, showing that the digital switch-over is almost complete.
While ITV and GMTV gathered 19% of the total television audience in the last three months of 2009, likely thanks to the popularity of the X-Factor, BBC1 continued to achieve the highest share of all the terrestrial channels, at 21%. All five analogue channels continue to lose ground however, as multi-channel satellite options grow in prominence.
The first technical transmissions of Freeview HD have begun today.
The Winter Hill transmitter group is currently beaming broadcasts to select areas of Manchester, with the Crystal Palace group doing the same for pockets of London. They are the first in the world to adopt the DVB-T2 standard and MPEG-4.
James Jackson, BBC head of broadcast infrastructure carried out a demonstration live at the BBC Media Centre. Promotional cuts from BBC HD and ITV HD broadcast by the Crystal Hill group were displayed using brand new IDTV's manufactured by Sony and Panasonic. Both channels were fully incorporated into the Freeview electronic programme guide.
Though the BBC broadcast was the same as is currently available on Freesat, ITV's offering was currently just an upscaled broadcast of the ITV1 channel. ITV have committed however to broadcast most of their top peak programme scheduling in full HD as the service becomes more widespread.
The BBC hope to have a national coverage of 50% for Freeview HD in time for the 2010 World Cup, reaching its maximum 98.5% national coverage by late 2012. Channel 4 also hope to launch a Freeview HD channel in the new year, with as many as five other HD channels in the wings from the network.
For news of when your area will be receiving Freeview HD broadcasts, click here.
Ahh, a four-day weekend beckons. Here's a look at some of the high definition highlights available across the UK channels this weekend.
Don't forget, you need Freesat in order to watch ITV HD, and either Sky or Freesat to watch BBC HD or Channel 4 HD.
Animation
Good Friday
10 April | Chicken Run
Classic Aardman Animations comedy with the voices of Mel Gibson, Julia Sawalha and Imelda Staunton | 4.20pm | BBC HD |
Good Friday
10 April | Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death
Follows the plasticine pair running their own bakery business. | 8.30pm | BBC HD |
Easter Saturday
11 April | Finding Nemo
Animated underwater comedy | 5.10pm | BBC HD |
Easter Saturday
11 April | Persepolis
Animated drama based on graphic novel of Marjane Satrapi. | 11pm | Channel 4 HD |
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Comedy
The usual trio of comedy continues tonight from 10pm on Channel 4 HD, with Shameless, The Big Bang Theory (11.05pm) and My Name is Earl (11.35pm).
Documentaries
Horizon (9pm, BBC HD) follows comedian David Baddiel has he surveys the latest scientific research on how parents can best educate their children. After examining unconventional approaches such as hot-housing maths prodigies and rewarding good grades with cash, Baddiel undergoes a simulation of what it is like to struggle at school and discovers the neurological basis for teenage truculence.
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Comedy
That Mitchell and Webb Glimpse (9.45pm, BBC HD) is a fifteen-minute highlights programme from series two of the sketch show.
Drama
Doctors (6pm, BBC HD) sees Julia helping a distressed gypsy with a skin problem.
Law & Order: UK (9pm, ITV HD) sees a pensioner's grisly discovery forcing the retrial of a man found guilty of murder.
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Documentaries
Nature's Great Events (9pm, BBC HD) looks at the annual flooding of Botswana's Okavango Delta, which turns miles of arid plains into waterholes. Millions of animals are drawn to the water, including herds of elephants and buffalo, zebra, giraffes, birds and vast clouds of dragonflies.
Drama
Doctors continues tonight at 6pm on the BBC HD channel. Jimmi gets involved in a student film.
Desperate Housewives continues at 10pm on Channel 4 HD. Susan and Edie find themselves locked in a basement.
Mad Men is repeated tonight at 11.20pm on the BBC HD channel. Don finds himself caught in the middle of marital issues between TV comedian Jimmy and his wife Bobbie. Meanwhile, Joan gets engaged.
There's also another chance to see Law & Order: UK at 10.35pm on ITV HD. The team look into the killing of a former vice cop after his body was found in an underpass.
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Comedy
Shameless continues at 10pm on Channel 4 HD, followed by The Big Bang Theory at 11.10pm and My Name is Earl at 11.35pm.
Drama
Doctors (6pm, BBC HD) sees Lily's life in danger when she crosses paths with a hypochondriac.
In Mad Men (10pm, BBC HD), Don ends up at the police station after crashing his car.
In Damages (11.35pm, BBC HD), a suspect is arrested for the murder of Daniel's wife.
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Documentaries
Nature's Great Events (9pm, BBC HD) follows the spectacular feeding frenzy that takes place along South Africa's east coast each winter when the greatest gathering of predators on the planet hunt down billions of sardines.
Drama
Doctors at 6pm (BBC HD) sees Ruth getting caught up in a waitress's struggle to deal with her oppressive relationship.
Desperate Housewives (10pm, Channel 4 HD) follows the inevitable competition when Bree meets Andrew's future mother-in-law for the first time.
Mad Men continues at 11.20pm on BBC HD. In the run-up to Easter, Peggy's family hosts lunch for a visiting priest. Don and Betty argue about parenting and the Sterling Cooper employees have to work overtime.
There's also another chance to see Law & Order: UK at 10.35pm on the ITV HD channel.
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Comedy
Comedy from 10pm tonight on Channel 4 HD with Shameless followed by The Big Bang Theory (11.10pm) and My Name is Earl (11.40pm).
Drama
Damages continues at 11.35pm on the BBC HD channel. Patty pursues a case against a polluting company.
Mad Men continues on the BBC HD channel at 10pm. Peggy's family hosts lunch for a visiting priest.
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Documentaries
The final Who Do You Think You Are (10pm, BBC HD) follows Kevin Whately, who finds that business acumen runs in his family. Discovering his grandfather's fishing empire leads him back to an 18th-century turkey trader and on to the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange. Delving further, he discovers two brothers who helped fund the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War.
Drama
Heroes continues at 9pm on BBC HD. The heroes are forced to go on the run from one of their own.
Up against that, the new series of Law & Order: UK continues on ITV HD. The search for a teenage boy's killer leads to a defence strategy that challenges the whole nature of the British legal system.
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Chat
Guests on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (10.35pm, BBC HD) include Sir David Attenborough, Emily Blunt and Clive Owen, with music from U2.
Comedy
Not Going Out continues at 9.30pm on BBC HD, as a new and noisy neighbour annoys Lucy. Will Tim and Lee rustle up the courage to complain to him?
Free Agents (10pm, Channel 4 HD): After Helen finds Alex sleeping in his car, his day gets even worse when their boss tells them that an old friend and rival agent has died, and that they must attend the funeral.
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Documentaries
The third part of Nature's Great Events (9pm, BBC HD) looks at The Great Migration, tracing the bleak outlook for a pride of lions and their cubs in the Serengeti, when the trek to fresh pastures by wildebeest and zebras begins. With David Attenborough.
Drama
Desperate Housewives continues on Channel 4 HD at 10pm. Wisteria Lane intrigue resumes as police arrest Porter over the fire at the night club, and Bree discovers Andrew's boyfriend is a gay porn star.
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Comedy
Shameless continues at 10pm on Channel 4 HD. Karen and Jamie's relationship is shaken.
Drama
Damages continues tonight at 11.55pm on BBC HD. In Burn It, Shred It, I Don't Care, can Ellen lure Tom into making an illegal payment to a plaintiff?
Mad Men continues at 10pm on BBC HD. Don tries to get a comedian to apologise when a joke goes down badly at a promotional shoot.
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Documentaries
Tonight's Who Do You Think You Are? (10pm, BBC HD) follows Zoë Wanamaker. Zoë knows that her American actor father Sam fled to the UK at the time of the anti-communist witch hunts in the 1950s, when she was three. But a visit to the FBI's Washington headquarters reveals the extent of the risk he would have faced had he stayed. In Chicago, Zoë finds out how a series of tragedies suffered by her grandfather Maurice, a Russian émigré Jew, may have influenced Sam's politics.
Drama
Series three of Heroes resumes tonight at 9pm on BBC HD. In A Clear and Present Danger, the heroes are trying to build new lives after the explosions at Pinehurst and Primatech.
Alternatively, there's a new series of Law & Order: UK (9pm, ITV HD) -- starring Bradley Walsh. A tragic death is uncovered during the evacuation of a hospital.
Being Human continues at 11.15pm on the BBC HD channel.
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Chat
Tonight's guests on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (10.35pm, BBC HD) include Micky Rourke, Jason Manford and Will Young, along with music from The Cure.
Comedy
Not Going Out continues at 9.30pm on BBC HD, as Tim and Lee try to organise a surprise party for Lucy's 30th birthday. Their ideas of what makes a good bash differ wildly.
At 10pm on Channel 4 HD, Free Agents sees Helen posting Alex's details on a dating website.
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Comedy
The Green Green Grass continues on BBC HD at 8.30pm, as Boycie decides to write an autobiography as a future legacy.
Documentaries
In a new four-part series, Billy Connolly: Journey to the Edge of the World (9pm, ITV HD), the comedian sets off on an epic journey across Canada, by way of the fabled Northwest Passage.
Meanwhile, Channel 4 HD at 9pm shows Cutting Edge: Britain's Cojoined Twins: Hope and Faith. Eighteen-year-old Laura Williams and her husband Aled found themselves in the media spotlight after their cojoined twins, Hope and Faith, were delivered at Great Ormand Street Hospital in November last year.
Or, on the BBC HD channel at 9pm, Penelope Keith and the Fast Lady sees the actress retracing motoring pioneer Dorothy Levitt's 1905 journey from London to Liverpool.
Here's the pick of tonight's high definition fare.
Comedy
Shameless continues tonight at 11.05pm on Channel 4 HD, as Monica turns to hypnotism.
Documentaries
Nature's Great Events (9pm, BBC HD) looks at The Great Salmon Run. Every year, hundreds of millions of salmon return from the Pacific Ocean to the mountain streams of west coast Canada and Alaska where they were born, to spawn and die.
Not a huge selection of high definition programming tonight, but here's the pick:
Documentaries
Horizon (9pm, BBC HD) tonight asks "Can We Make a Star on Earth?" Nuclear fusion, the process that powers the Sun and the stars, continues to elude humankind. Professor Brian Cox assesses the past, present and future of our quest for the ultimate source of energy, witnessing a fusion bomb testing facility in action in the USA before, in South Korea, clambering inside the world's first super-cooled, super-conducting fusion reactor.
Drama
Series two of Damages begins tonight at 11.45pm on the BBC HD channel. In "I Lied, Too" an old acquaintance of Patty's reappears.
Films
Pick of the high definition films on the Sky network tonight include Parenthood (2am tomorrow, Sky Comedy HD), The Matrix (8pm, Sky Drama HD), Hannibal (11pm, Sky Sci-Fi/Horror HD) and Platoon (11.35pm, Sky Screen 1 HD).
Here's a selection of the best high definition content available on UK TV today.
Documentaries
A new four-part series begins tonight at 7pm on BBC HD. Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections looks at the "Super Jumbo" Airbus A380.
Tonight's Who Do You Think You Are? (9pm, BBC HD) follows chef Rick Stein as he sets out to explore the life of his father, a manic depressive who committed suicide in the 1960s.
Drama
Being Human continues at 10.30pm on BBC HD, as Mitchell befriends a boy and his mother.
Don't let the date put you off watching a bit of British high definition telly today. Here are the highlights.
Chat
Tonight's Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (10.35pm, BBC HD) features Dev Patel, Michael McIntyre, Morrissey and Emily Mortimer.
Comedy
There's comedy with Lee Mack and Tim Vine in Not Going Out tonight at 9.30pm on BBC HD. Lucy discovers a side to herself that she never knew existed when Lee and Tim invite a lesbian couple over for dinner.
New comedy begins on Channel 4 HD at 10pm in Free Agents. Starring Stephen Mangan and Sharon Horgan, it charts the on-off romance between two talent agents who are going through emotional crises.
Perhaps it's a knock on effect of the global rescession, but the latest report by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising has found that TV viewing is at the highest it has been in 18 years.
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