Nearly 10 Million U.S. Homes Unprepared for Digital Switch

NEW YORK, October 16: As
the February 2009 digital transition in the U.S. rapidly approaches, The
Nielsen Company has revealed that some 9.6 million homes are not ready for the
switch.

Those 9-plus million homes
would be unable to receive any TV programming if the switch happened today,
Nielsen states. Moreover, another 12.6 million homes have at least one
television set that will no longer work when the digital transition occurs. All
in all, nearly one in five U.S. households are either partially or completely
unready for the transition.

Nielsen notes that
households headed by less educated, lower income and blue-collar workers are
least prepared for the transition. The report also found that nearly a quarter
of all unready analogue sets are not being used to view regular television;
instead, they are being used for DVD/VCR playback and video games.

Other key findings include
that 15 percent of prime-time viewing of English-language broadcast networks
occurs on analogue sets, versus 26 percent of Spanish-language viewing. In
homes that have made the transition, there is a 19-percent increase in overall
viewing.

All TV stations in the
U.S. are required to switch to digital programming by February 17, 2009.

—By Mansha Daswani