Antenna households lag in DTV adoption
June 4th, 2007When it comes to the digital TV transition, over-the-air TV viewers are acting like couch potatoes.
The rabbit-ears set is apparently in no hurry to buy digital TV sets or subscribe to cable or satellite TV, according to a study from the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS):
In the past three years over-the- air households purchased new TV sets at about a 12 percent to 13 percent rate each year. In comparison, cable and satellite homes bought new TVs at an 18 percent rate per year. For example, the number of cable/satellite households that owned a digital television grew from 4.49 percent in the first quarter of 2005 to 23.45 percent in the first quarter of 2007. However, the percentage of over-the-air households that owned a digital television only grew from 1.96 percent to 7.12 percent over that same period.
Of the 22 million U.S. households that get their television exclusively free and over-the-air, only 7 percent own a digital television, compared to 23 percent of those who subscribe to cable or satellite.
The study is the latest alarm bell from APTS, which revealed in January that 61 percent of over-the-air households were entirely unaware of the DTV transition, according to a survey it commissioned.
“Our study confirms that the government grossly under-funded consumer education when it mandated the end of television as most people know it by February 2009,” said APTS President and CEO John Lawson. “We need a Y2K-level effort to ensure that people are aware that their older TV sets will go dark in 21 months if they don’t acquire a digital converter, buy a new set or incur the monthly cost of a cable or satellite bill.”