99 percent of U.S. homes can receive DTV

Sep 15, 2009 10:44 AM

    

A total of 710,000 homes in the United States could not receive a DTV signal as of Aug. 30, according to the latest research from The Nielsen Company.

Nielsen, which has steadily tracked the number of households unprepared for the DTV transition, reported Sept. 8 that 99.4 percent of homes in the country have the ability to receive DTV. The most recent percentage of homes unready for DTV, 0.6 percent, compares favorably with the 6.8 percent that were unprepared as of Dec. 21, 2008.

Four markets tracked by Nielsen’s electronic meters are completely prepared for DTV, including New York City; Nashville, TN; Louisville, KY; Providence, RI; and New Bedford, MA. In another 44 markets, less than 1 percent of households are unready for DTV.

The least ready market on a percentage basis in the latest Nielsen survey is Las Vegas, which surpassed Albuquerque-Santa FE, NM, with 2.18 percent, or a total of 15,879 homes, that have not taken the necessary steps to receive a DTV signal, Nielsen said.

By age, households headed by those under 35 continue to lag in preparedness compared to those of people older than 55, with 1.6 percent of the former unprepared versus 0.2 percent of the latter.

By ethnicity, the Nielsen figures revealed 1.3 percent of Hispanic, 1 percent of African-American, 0.5 percent of white and 0.4 percent of Asian households were unready for DTV.

On June 12, after a four-month postponement, full-power TV stations in the United States ceased analog transmission and inaugurated the era of DTV nationwide.




Want to use this article?
Click here for options!
Get Copyright Clearance

Share this article

blog comments powered by Disqus

 

Current Issue

Online captioning compliance

May 2012

The FCC has issued captioning requirements for all online video. Learn how to meet the requirements of the new rules and how to automate the technical process.

Read More articles...

Related Newsletter

HD Technology Update
A twice-monthly newsletter covering high definition technology through example applications.

Related Posts


Confused about the terminology in an article? Find definitions of common terms and abbreviations in Broadcast Engineering's Glossary.

 


Video Compression, Editing and Displays

Video Compression, Editing and Displays

Video compression, editing and displays is an in-depth tutorial on MPEG compression technology, editing MPEG content and evaluating color video monitors written by long-time video expert, trainer and writer Steve Mullen, Ph. D.

File Based Technology and Workflow

File Based Technology and Workflow

File-based technologies have replaced video tape methods for a majority of production and broadcast operations. The worlds of AV and IT are coalescing to create new methods and workflows for media

Sound Off Podcasts

 

Broadcast Engineering Digital Reference Guide

Browse Back Issues

Back to Top