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As the Â鶹Éç launches its latest digital marketing campaign targeted at analogue viewers yet to go digital, all six Â鶹Éç digital channels are performing strongly and proving to be a big hit with viewers.

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The full portfolio of Â鶹Éç channels is tailored to suit different audiences and interests and offers a rich public service mix of original programmes of real quality.

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Recent figures testify to their viewer appeal. With over 50% of homes now able to watch the channels both share and reach are growing.

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Since the start of the Â鶹Éç's digital campaign in October 2002 the digital market has grown by 32 per cent, with millions more people now able to watch the Â鶹Éç's digital channels on cable, satellite and with Freeview.

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Opportunities to see first showings such as Little Britain on Â鶹Éç THREE and The Alan Clark Diaries on Â鶹Éç FOUR are bringing in new and loyal viewers.

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Â鶹Éç THREE's share since launch in February 2003 has increased by 27% for all viewers and by 38% for target audience (25-34) compared with last year.

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Since autumn 2003, Â鶹Éç FOUR has been out-performing all comparable specialist multichannels in terms of weekly reach and leads with Discovery in terms of share for similar channels.

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Share for the year to date is at 0.44%, an increase of 69% on the same period last year.

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Between November and February Â鶹Éç FOUR reached more than one in five digital viewers each month - that is more than six million people.

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In March 2004, The CÂ鶹Éç Channel was second place among the non-preschool channels, with an average share of 3.8 per cent, an increase of 1.3 points on March 2003.

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Fifteen minute reach for The CÂ鶹Éç Channel is the strongest of non-preschool channels averaging one million children per week (17.01 per cent) in February 2004 compared to 483,000 in the same period of the previous year.

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CBeebies remains the market leader of children's TV with share in March 2004 holding steady at 7.3 per cent - more than double the second ranking preschool channel.

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CBeebies has consistently been the strongest channel but still manages to improve with share up 0.5 points compared to March 2003.

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Reach is also improving. In February 2004 CBeebies averaged 1.1 million (19%) compared to 918,000 (17.6%) in February 2003.

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This again makes it the easy leader in the preschool market with more than double the reach of the next most popular channel.

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Â鶹Éç News 24 has seen an increase in reach of 16 per cent from 2002 to 2003 bringing total reach up to 4.2 million.

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Â鶹Éç Parliament has also done well, for example on the afternoon of the tuition fees debate (27 January) it had more viewers than Sky News and ITV News for much of the afternoon.

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Reach for January rose to one million people.

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Last year's digital campaigns have played a big part in tipping digital take-up over the 50 per cent mark for the first time - ensuring that the Â鶹Éç's complete digital portfolio is now available to the majority of people in the UK.

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The new campaign, launched 1 April, goes live across television, radio and online promoting Â鶹Éç digital channels available on satellite, cable and with Freeview to those people yet to go digital.

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Viewers will see a return of the Â鶹Éç digital monkeys, fresh from the depths of the jungle, taking centre stage on their very own daytime TV show extolling the benefits of digital TV and the Â鶹Éç channels.

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Building on the highly successful autumn campaign - which prompted 2.5 million people to contact the Â鶹Éç for more information - the spring campaign will once again feature monkeys this time voiced by James Nesbitt and Faye Ripley.

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The 'face-off' device of previous Â鶹Éç digital campaigns is used to reveal another jungle star, Jennie Bond, and Laurence Llewellyn Bowen.

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The autumn 2003 period saw one million set top box and integrated digital television sales for Freeview - with half a million sales in December alone -ensuring that digital terrestrial television became the second largest digital platform behind satellite.

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Equipment sales for Freeview are currently in excess of 3.4 million units.

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Ilse Howling, Head of Â鶹Éç Digital Marketing and Communications, said: "It's been a fantastic year for digital growth and we are delighted that the Â鶹Éç's digital campaigns have played a big part in propelling digital take-up to over half of UK homes.

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"This means that more and more people have access to the Â鶹Éç's full portfolio of award winning channels.

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"The last campaign had fantastic impact in cutting through consumer confusion over digital television and motivated them to take their first step into the digital world.

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"This new campaign is fresh and clear and will really push forward the digital message to those people still restricted to just the analogue channels."

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The TV trails were written and art directed by Simon Riley - Creative Head at dfgw.

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They were produced by John Golley and directed by Steve Cope from Â鶹Éç Broadcast.

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dfgw is the creative agency behind the original Â鶹Éç Digital campaign.

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The monkeys come courtesy of puppeteers Artem.

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Notes to Editors

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The 'face-off' campaign revealed a variety of Â鶹Éç personalities by peeling away one person's face to reveal another underneath - cleverly executed in post-production of the trails.

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The Â鶹Éç's complete digital TV portfolio includes Â鶹Éç ONE and Â鶹Éç TWO along with the six extra channels - Â鶹Éç THREE, Â鶹Éç FOUR, The CÂ鶹Éç Channel, CBeebies, Â鶹Éç News 24 and Â鶹Éç Parliament - and Â鶹Éçi.

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They are available on satellite, cable and with Freeview.

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Stand-out programming includes Â鶹Éç THREE's comedy Little Britain, dark comedy drama Nighty Night and Tower Block Dreams the series which took an honest look at modern inner city life.

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Â鶹Éç FOUR, the channel which has brought new depth to audiences passionate about culture, documentary, arts and global affairs, screened drama series The Alan Clark Diaries, Black Flash the centrepiece of a season of football documentaries, and behind the scenes factual series The National Trust.

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The CÂ鶹Éç Channel's programming includes Xchange, the interactive magazine show for enquiring minds.

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CBeebies' quality line-up includes Tikkabilla which draws on the best pre-school traditions of music, song, rhyme and storytelling, as well as Scottish drama Balamory, and entertaining cookery show Big Cook, Little Cook.

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Â鶹Éç News 24 includes hard hitting political debate programme Straight Talk, daily news bulleting World News, and HARDtalk with one-to-one interviews on hot topics.