HD Penetration hits 30%
CEA Study Shows HD Consumers Demand More HD Programming
(Consumer Electronics Association News Release)

Arlington, Virginia, June 26, 2007 -- The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)® predicts 16 million high-definition televisions (HDTV) will sell in 2007 bringing the total number of HDTVs sold in the U.S. to 52.5 million. Thirty percent of U.S. households now have an HDTV, likely rising to 36 percent by the end of this year. Among these HDTV households, almost a third own more than one high-definition set, proving the booming nature of this market.

A new CEA study, HDTV: You Have the Set, But Do You Have the Content?, found that 44 percent of HDTV owners receive HD programming. The main reasons consumers stated for not receiving the programming was that it was too expensive or they were not interested. Yet, while there is some confusion among HD owners as to whether they are receiving HD programming, the vast majority of owners understand what programming they receive and do not receive. CEA maintains a website, www.AntennaWeb.org, that provides consumers information for receiving free, over-the-air HD programming.

The study revealed one of the primary reasons consumers are buying HDTVs is not to watch television programming but rather to improve their movie and gaming experience. Currently, the most prevalent device connected to an HDTV not receiving HD programming is a DVD player. Nearly 40 percent of these consumer households also connect surround sound and video game systems to their HDTV.

“Consumers are satisfied overall with HDTV,” said CEA Director of Research Joe Bates. “But our studies indicate continued education is necessary to ensure consumers truly understand how to receive the full HD experience.”

Sixty-six percent of owners who receive HD programming get their programming through a cable company. Of the remaining households receiving HD programming, 27 percent are satellite, 8 percent are over-the-air, 3 percent fiber optic service and 3 percent from the Internet. This profile mirrors the U.S. television reception profile, indicating that HD content is not resulting in a migration to or from any one television-programming provider.

“As we have seen for years, consumers still demand more HD content,” continued Bates. “Currently, more than 50 percent of HD households show some interest in upgrading their HD subscription package to include more HD channels.”

CEA’s HDTV: You Have the Set, But Do You Have the Content? (June 2007) was designed and formulated by CEA Market Research, the most comprehensive source of sales data, forecasts, consumer research and historical trends for the consumer electronics industry. The study was administered via telephone interview to a random national sample of 2,508 U.S adults between April 10 and 24, 2007.

http://www.ce.org/Press/CurrentNews/press_release_detail.asp?id=11309

Judging by the figures on "how" Americans get their HD fix, it seems that regardless of the cable/sat HD marketing schemes (which are just the current versions of the cable v. sat ad-war battle cries we've heard for years now), people overall seem to stick/settle with what they've got.

Which is not surprising.

Good to see HD's growth in the USA. It's about time!

Yet, while there is some confusion among HD owners as to whether they are receiving HD programming, the vast majority of owners understand what programming they receive and do not receive.
I call BS. I doubt the "vast majority" of the 56% of those who aren't receiving HD programming understand what HD programming is.

A new CEA study found that 44 percent of HDTV owners receive HD programming.
The other 56% are a mystery. Are they just stupid? Or do they enjoy ladling caviar on a donut? Or are they waiting for some threshold for HD content before subscribing to it? (The last option seems unlikely, as free OTA HD is among the best-looking content available, and the major networks that broadcast OTA are still getting relatively high numbers of viewers.)

I call BS. I doubt the "vast majority" of the 56% of those who aren't receiving HD programming understand what HD programming is.I think that you would have been 100% correct back in 2004 or 2005. But I'm seeing a lot of friends and family who now have correct HD STB from their cable or satellite company. Whereas before I would have just seen them using the built in NTSC tuner only.

Even my dullard friend have finally signed on to the proper HD packages. I of course have been talking about HD since 2003 to the point where my friends (and their wives) just rolled their eyes when ever I managed to steer the conversations to that topic ;) . Now they are telling me about how they never watch that SD crap anymore and how great it is. Duh, 3yrs too late dude!

The other 56% are a mystery. Are they just stupid? Or do they enjoy ladling caviar on a donut? Or are they waiting for some threshold for HD content before subscribing to it? (The last option seems unlikely, as free OTA HD is among the best-looking content available, and the major networks that broadcast OTA are still getting relatively high numbers of viewers.)

I actually know 2 people that fit into this category.

One of them needed to buy a new TV and bought one with HD knowing that he would eventually want HD. He lives in an area in with the small Cable Company they have does not provide any HD - and OTA would be a stretch. He is considering satellite, but has decided to give his Cable provider a few more months.

The other purchased a smaller HD set for a home office. Again, needed to buy a new TV and was thinking to the future. It is not the primary TV in the home, and no other TV in the home is HD. I wish he would have asked me for my input before the purchase so I could have encouraged him to buy one with a QAM tuner and maybe a cablecard. He had the TV for a few months without any HD service. You will all be happy to know that I picked up a $10 antenna at a garage sale and introduced him to OTA HD...

The other 56% are a mystery. Are they just stupid? Or do they enjoy ladling caviar on a donut? Or are they waiting for some threshold for HD content before subscribing to it? (The last option seems unlikely, as free OTA HD is among the best-looking content available, and the major networks that broadcast OTA are still getting relatively high numbers of viewers.)

You missed the main point in the article entirely:
The study revealed one of the primary reasons consumers are buying HDTVs is not to watch television programming but rather to improve their movie and gaming experience. Currently, the most prevalent device connected to an HDTV not receiving HD programming is a DVD player. Nearly 40 percent of these consumer households also connect surround sound and video game systems to their HDTV.


Not one of my friends who can afford an HD TV (ie upscale consumers) allow television programming into their house. They only allow DVDs and carefully monitor which DVDs are allowed for their families. (And none of them are fundamentalist types - in fact, they tend to be liberals.)

BTW, it's interesting that only 8% have OTA hooked up to their HD TV, despite the fact that I would expect that a majority live within the reach of FREE HD OTA channels. Clearly, either people don't know that digital OTA doesn't have all the defects of analog OTA (likely), or they don't want an OTA antenna on their house (also likely).

Clearly, either people don't know that digital OTA doesn't have all the defects of analog OTA (likely), or they don't want an OTA antenna on their house (also likely).
Or, they're just getting the channels from their cable or satellite provider.

It seems to me that the 56% are just content with a big screen TV and aren't concerned with picture quality.

Let's be honest, if you're getting your TV via cable (which most people are), you've probably never been concerned with PQ because it blows just about everywhere and always has. And the worst part is, they probably don't even realize it. I never realized how absolutely attrocious my PQ with Adelphia/Comcast was until I switched to Verizon.

Not one of my friends who can afford an HD TV (ie upscale consumers) allow television programming into their house. They only allow DVDs and carefully monitor which DVDs are allowed for their families. (And none of them are fundamentalist types - in fact, they tend to be liberals.)



Nice closed-minded, censor-happy liberal friends you have there. God forbid their children should watch the news, nature shows, science shows. Just feed them Michael Moore and Al Gore DVDs.

So does this mean that we will have at least 30% of all TV content HD?

Now I wonder how many (older) folks know about the death of OTA analog in 09'?

My brother in law has a 55" HDTV but no HD programming (he stretches SD channels... Ugh). When asked why he says his HDTV needs an additional set top box to receive HD. So I ask him why he doesn't get one. He has no answer. He lives in an area where no OTA is available (Palmdale, CA). I tried to talk him into getting Dish Network with their HD service saying he could get a HD box even one with a DVR for free but he doesn't go for it. One problem for him is that the house has 6 TVs and that would mean 5 extra STB at $5 each plus the $20 HD package over his current cable bill.

Still he says that if his cable company doesn't have the NFL channel by the time football starts he will go with Dish.

Rick R

This article from December 2006 reports on a survey that found 40% of households with HD sets are actually viewing HD programming, but also found 19% of those households which are truly viewing HD programming are getting that programming via OTA :

http://broadcastengineering.com/RF/hd-ota-viewers-1221/

edit: I don't know what the true numbers are, but I do know I don't trust CEA on many matters, including when it comes to reporting OTA DTV/HD viewership "numbers" ....

Rick_R -

He could keep the costs down if he goes with Dish's "dual-tuner" models - he'd only need three for those 6 sets (at least three of the sets will only be able to receive SD, though - but they'll still be able to view the downscaled HD channels on them).

And that'd only be 10 - 12 bucks for the boxes, since there's no access charge on the first one.

Rammitinski,

I mentioned to him that if he got the 622 (which I showed him mine and he really liked it) he could avoid one of the extra STB but then he would have to pay a DVR fee so it would be pretty much of a wash. Never thought about additional dual tuners STB. His basic cable bill is $10 more with less channels than the Dish 200 channel package so that helps too.

Both the DDP34 and DDP44 switches only have 4 outputs. Do you know if they can handle 2 regular STB plus 2 dual tuner STB?

Rick R

I'm not really sure about that. But I think you're allowed up to 4 tuners of either kind per account (at least with the "Home Advantage" plan I think you can), so I would assume they have a switch that can handle that. I could be wrong about either of those things, though.

Just wondering - why the 2 single tuners? Why not 3 dual-tuners instead? They're just coming out now with a new dual-tuner model that's HD/SD, with no DVR. Then there's the 622, which is HD/SD, and the 322, which is SD/SD.

Otherwise, with 2 singles and 2 doubles, he'd have to pay for 3 extra tuners rather than 2.

edit: I don't know what the true numbers are, but I do know I don't trust CEA on many matters, including when it comes to reporting OTA DTV/HD viewership "numbers" ....

When it comes to CEA, unless they have recently changed, they only report "shipped" numbers to US wholesalers, not sold sets to end consumers.

When it comes to CEA, unless they have recently changed, they only report "shipped" numbers to US wholesalers, not sold sets to end consumers.

From the article in first post of this thread :


"A new CEA study, HDTV: You Have the Set, But Do You Have the Content?, found that 44 percent of HDTV owners receive HD programming.......

..... Sixty-six percent of owners who receive HD programming get their programming through a cable company. Of the remaining households receiving HD programming, 27 percent are satellite, 8 percent are over-the-air, 3 percent fiber optic service and 3 percent from the Internet.......


who knows, Maybe part of their study is from info from retailers -- I recall being asked the last time I purchased an HDTV(with internal ATSC receiver of course) by the salesman who was typing stuff in at his terminal : "How do you get your TV programming, via cable or satellite?" He seemed confused when I answered "neither, I use an antenna/Over the air, including for HD programming", and he seemingly couldn't think of anything better than to keep asking the question(about 10 times), and about 10 times I answered the same way ... I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not ... It was rather humorous, really .... I wonder what he "typed in"? ;)

.... I wonder what he "typed in"? ;)

Well, there you go! :D