Far fewer Americans receive HD service than own HDTVs, says researcher
Dec 12, 2006 8:00 AM
HDTU: Where do we stand in terms of HD households today and into the future?
MP: Specifically, in the U.S. today, there are 9.8 million households that are watching HD programming — in other words, HD service households that have both an installed HD set and are watching HD programming. So, it’s just fewer than 10 million at the end of 2006.
Looking forward, we expect that number to reach 13 million 12 months from now — or 13 million by the end of 2007. We expect that number to be just under 16 million at the end of ’08, 20 million at the end of ’09 and then reach about 23 million to 24 million at the end of 2010.
In terms of a forecast, that could go up, but not significantly. In other words, that may rise 10 percent by 2009-2010 based on a couple of other factors happening to include improved education, to include resolution of the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray issue, to include more programming. But, we find that’s pretty realistic growth projections for the next four years for HDTV services.
HDTU: How do you see the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray war being resolved?
MP: We hear several things about that. We have maintained for the past year or so that there’s room for both formats in the market. If both formats continue to exist going out three years from now, however, it’s going to slow down the adoption rate of people watching HD-DVD or Blu-ray services.
What we heard recently, and we are hearing this from several sources from both consumer electronics manufacturers and silicon suppliers, that there is a move among certain manufacturers to try and develop a universal drive in the next 12 months, roughly. In other words, you’ll get your DVD player and it won’t have two drives. One won’t be Blu-ray and the other HD-DVD. It will have a single drive that can play either format of DVD.
Now, there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed and solved before that comes to market. But, we are hearing more and more about interest in that type of device. So, I would say conservatively there might be something on the market 12 months from now that provides a universal drive.
That doesn’t mean it’s going to be cheap; it doesn’t mean it’s going to solve the sort of conundrum between the two different standards. But, it means there might finally be an alternative that would be readily adopted by consumers. So, I think the problem is not going to be solved in the next year or two. The market is going to be constrained by multiple standards, but we are starting to see the development of an alternative in terms of getting products into consumers’ hands.
HDTU: From the figures you presented during your presentation today, about 19 percent of HD viewers receive their signal over the air. That’s a little bit higher than the approximately 15 percent who watch NTSC over the air. What accounts for the difference?
MP: You’re right. If you split it out like that, it’s actually a little bit higher penetration rates for terrestrial HD households than there are regular terrestrial households. So, there is roughly 19 percent of the 9.8 million HDTV service households today that are terrestrial, where there is only about 15 or 16 million total households, so we are talking about 13 percent roughly of terrestrial.
What that points to is that a lot of the terrestrial households were among the first to adopt HDTV and HDTV services because it was as a whole less complicated at first, mostly because you couldn’t get HD services from your cable or satellite operator. If you wanted HD in 2002 and most of 2003, you had to use an antenna to get over-the-air programming.
So, a lot of those early adopters were terrestrial households. That’s probably the biggest reason why there is a difference between the two.
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