Mediabug Wave 7 reports that to date 24% of the UK online population has purchased a digital copy of a TV show or film (known as EST ‘electronic sell through’).

Although most of these buyers purchased via an online store such as iTunes, Google Play or Amazon Instant, the new option of buying via your TV set top box has attracted new consumers to digital buying. To date, 8% of the UK online population have purchased via their set top box, but half of this group ( 4%) had never purchased EST before.

Director of Decipher media research Dr. Hamish McPharlin said: “The advent of TV EST ticks all the right boxes for mainstream consumers; putting digital purchases right there alongside live TV and recordings on the family set top box. We are not surprised that this has appealed to consumers previously resistant to purchasing via devices.”

Among the other findings in the report are that live TV viewing has halted its decline of long-form viewing time year on year; both SVOD and catch-up remained at the 2014 level of 3%, while live TV has remained at 74%. Catch Up TV has increased its share of VOD viewing on set top boxes – increases in share of total TV VOD viewing come from BBC iPlayer (+3%), ITV Player (+1%) and All 4 (+2%).

The bi-annual tracker Mediabug is based on an online consumer survey of 3000 UK consumers and is now in its fourth year.