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The pre-Christmas campaign, which features a cartoon character called Boxer, is also designed to drive sales of Freeview digital boxes as presents.

The promotion follows criticism of two of the channels, BBC3 and BBC4, in a report by Professor Patrick Barwise of London Business School. The study, commissioned by the government, concluded that they were a poor use of the licence fee.

The activity also follows last week's launch of Freesat from Sky, potentially a rival digital platform to Freeview.

The work, which broke yesterday (Tuesday), will air on BBC One, BBC Two and BBC radio stations until Christmas. It will include a national outdoor drive, handled by PHD, using 800 sites.

The campaign's theme, 'You can teach an old TV new tricks', tackles misconceptions and fears about digital TV held by analogue viewers.

Executions feature Boxer, a dog-like character created by Aardman Animations, who gets a new lease of life when his owner gives him a set-top box to watch the BBC's six digital channels. John Henshaw of BBC2's Early Doors provides the voice of Boxer, and Amanda Burton contributes a voiceover.

Two executions promote BBC digital programmes and set-top boxes as Christmas presents. They were created by DFGW in partnership with Aardman Animations and BBC Broadcast.

Last week Ofcom revealed that digital penetration stood at 55% of UK households by the end of June. Freeview is now accessible in 4.4m homes.

In the pre-Christmas period last year, sales of Freeview boxes hit 100,000 a week.