http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/69022

Nielsen Says More Households Ready for DTV

11.06.2008

Nielsen announced this week that the number of TV households unready for the DTV transition declined to less than 8 percent in September.

As of the end of October, 8.8 million out of an estimated 114.5 million households in the U.S. don’t have a DTV, converter box, cable or satellite service. This represents 7.7 percent of all households, down from 8.4 percent in September. As recently as May, 9.8 percent were “completely unready,” according to the media analysis firm.

Nielsen said 10.7 percent, or 15 million households were “partially unready” as of October. Those households have at least some digital service but also have additional TV sets that won’t be able to receive a digital signal. A portion of those sets, however, may be dedicated for other uses, such as VCR/DVD-only, or for gaming.

Approximately 12.4 of Hispanic households, which are more likely to rely exclusively on over the air broadcasts, are “completely unready,” compared to 7.1 percent of non-Hispanic households.

Nielsen’s DTV ready figures—which it has been compiling since May—are based on its National and local People Meter samples.

Is it good news that 8.8M homes are completely unready with just over 3 months to go? That is about 1.2M lower than the May report, at least.

The following article was linked in the Hartford OTA thread, which has some additional info.

http://www.wfsb.com/digital-tv/17957907/detail.html#-

The numbers look impressive, until the OTA viewers are broken out of it. Doing this, the following approximate "complete unreadiness" figures can be arrived at:

Ft. Myers: 47% (5.1% non subscription/OTA viewers as of July '08)
Hartford: 46% (5.7%)
West Palm Beach: 74% (4.3%)
Atlanta: 54% (6.1%)
Philadelphia: 60% (6.2%)
New York: 84% (3.7%)
Boston: 79% (5.3%)
Miami: 57% (8.1%)
Charlotte: 50% (9.8%)
Providence: 66% (7.7%)

As for the "most behind" areas, some of the numbers don't look much different than the above.

Houston: 70% (22.5% non subscription/OTA viewers as of July '08)
Dallas: 69% (20.6%)
Tulsa: 81% (17.4%)
Salt Lake City: 58% (23.1%)
Milwaukee: 64% (20.7%)
Albuquerque: 70% (18.2%)
Minneapolis/St. Paul: 65% (18.4%)
Austin: 82% (14.1%)
Los Angeles: 75% (15.5%)
Memphis: 83% (13.9%)

It would be more useful to see exact numbers for OTA viewer conversions, rather than including cable/sat into this group. The numbers from the linked article inflates imaginary success.

Of course, I see much irony in including transitions to analog pay cable as "successful."

Averaging the above indicates that about 70% of all OTA TV viewers in the US are completely unready for the transition.