June 7th, 2009
Digital TV conversion figures: 5 percent switch to cable, 8 percent buy new HDTV
As the transition to a 100-percent digital TV landscape officially comes at the end of the week, market research firm Knowledge Networks has crunched some numbers to find out that about a quarter of TV households were impacted by the switch.
Despite what seems like the near-ubiquity of cable TV, a sizable 18 percent of homes purchased an analog-to-digital converter box because one of their sets doesn’t receive a digital signal of some kind. The numbers for other related purchases are lower, which is not surprising given that many buying the converter boxes are older TV watchers who are happy with the wide variety of police procedural dramas littering network TV lineups. Eight percent of households bit the bullet and purchased a new HDTV, while 5 percent finally decided to subscribe to cable or satellite TV programming.
If you’re thankful for the June 12 switchover so you can stop seeing ads telling you about the move to digital signals, you should at least know that those spots are working. At this point, fully 91 percent of survey respondents said they were aware of the transition. It also appears that the government’s coupon program helped to defray the cost of converter boxes: 80 percent of those buying those devices used the coupons.
Have you been impacted by the switch to digital? Take the poll below and let us know in the TalkBack section.
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Sean Portnoy spent several years as an editor at Computer Shopper magazine, most recently serving as online executive editor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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