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How Has the DTV Transition Affected You?

image A new study has revealed that a full 26% of Americans have either changed their viewing habits or bought new equipment due to the digital television cutoff coming June 12th.

Knowledge Networks has been tracking reaction to the digital transition since 2006; the new data, collected from February to April this year, shows that, among TV households:

  • 18% said they had bought a digital converter to adapt a standard definition set to receive digital signals;
  • 8% bought a digital or HDTV set specifically in preparation for the transition; and
  • 5% started a new subscription to a pay television service such as cable or satellite TV, also specifically in anticipation of the switch to digital

Awareness of the transition has increased to 91 percent of all TV homes, up from 85% in 2008 and 45% in 2007. All subgroups – whether by householder age, race, ethnicity, or reception type – report awareness over 90%.

Among the 18% of TV homes that bought a digital converter, most (80%) utilized the government coupon program. In homes that still have only broadcast reception, three times as many (53%) report they bought a digital converter in the past year, and 93% of those used the coupon program.

The number of sets per home relying on regular broadcast reception averaged 0.48 in the new survey; this is almost two-thirds less compared with our Spring 2006 survey, when the average was 1.32. Between their awareness of the transition and evidence of adaptation to this new broadcast standard, it is clear Americans have received the message about the transition loud and clear.

 

How has the digital transition affected your home?  New TV? Switch to cable or satellite?  Bigger antenna?  Leave a comment and let us know!

 

via Knowledge Networks

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About the author

Adam Thursby

Adam Thursby is the founder and creator of The Digital Media Zone.

2 Comments

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  • Well so far we have nothing good to say about the digital transition. It has not affected us @ home b/c we were on Cable all the time…so we can't see a difference there…everything just continued on the same. But when it comes to portable it has affected us greatly! We bought a used High top Conversion van last year for our traveling needs. The van is very useful for long trips where the person that was driving can take a break and get out of the windshield by getting in one of the Captains chairs in the second row while the rested person takes over the wheel. The van we bought has a HDTV in the back that came in handy if the resting person didn't want to nap and would like to catch a little TV time. Yes permitting you could pick up a signal you could watch TV while the van was going down the road. You usually could pick up at least one channel, but most of the time 3 or 4. Rarely you could pick up nothing at all. And that was without anything more than the antenna on the van for this, we definitely had NOT installed a satellite on the van and were not making monthly satellite payments for the service. Well since the Great Digital Transition you can no longer do this. You now can only pick up channels while the van is not moving and still then you may not pick up as many as you did before. What the heck happened? I thought we were supposed to go forward in life not backwards. ???
    So that is our opinion about this so called Great Digital Transition. Anybody else out there with this similar complaint?

  • Well so far we have nothing good to say about the digital transition. It has not affected us @ home b/c we were on Cable all the time…so we can't see a difference there…everything just continued on the same. But when it comes to portable it has affected us greatly! We bought a used High top Conversion van last year for our traveling needs. The van is very useful for long trips where the person that was driving can take a break and get out of the windshield by getting in one of the Captains chairs in the second row while the rested person takes over the wheel. The van we bought has a HDTV in the back that came in handy if the resting person didn't want to nap and would like to catch a little TV time. Yes permitting you could pick up a signal you could watch TV while the van was going down the road. You usually could pick up at least one channel, but most of the time 3 or 4. Rarely you could pick up nothing at all. And that was without anything more than the antenna on the van for this, we definitely had NOT installed a satellite on the van and were not making monthly satellite payments for the service. Well since the Great Digital Transition you can no longer do this. You now can only pick up channels while the van is not moving and still then you may not pick up as many as you did before. What the heck happened? I thought we were supposed to go forward in life not backwards. ???
    So that is our opinion about this so called Great Digital Transition. Anybody else out there with this similar complaint?