HDTV penetration rises to 40 million, 34% of U.S. households
by Richard Lawler 
posted Nov 12th 2008 at 2:41PM
The Leichtman Research Group is back again, with its sixth annual study on all things HDTV, extrapolating from a 1,302 household survey that the number of homes with an HDTV has reached 40 million. Overall, HDTV penetration has crossed a third of households, up to 34% from 20% last year, while those with an HDTV set who thought they were watching HD, but actually weren't, dropped slightly to 18%. Also less than pleasing to our eye is the finding that just a 1% increase from last year in the number of customer reporting they were told how to get high definition programming, but the percentage of homes watching HD jumped 5 points to 58%. The read link has a few more numbers for those seeking their yearly update, but we're already wondering how things will read next year.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Multi-format-mayhem @ Nov 12th 2008 7:10PM
Just over 1/3rd. In the USA.
Hmmm, I'd expected much better than that, around 1/3rd is what people have been saying for about a year.
Looks like more than a little exaggeration was going on.
Gus @ Nov 12th 2008 7:19PM
HDTVs are only 34% of the market, yet somehow blu ray is going mainstream this holiday season?!
I wonder what is the percentage of those HDTVs being 42" or bigger ?
Pretty hard to spin blu ray figures when these stats are available, I guess that won't stop the BDA though.....or should that be the BSA.
Mark @ Nov 13th 2008 9:20AM
The % is only going to keep climbing rapidly with the price of sets falling, the analogue switchover and stores not even bothering to sell many SD sets any more. It is clearly a rapidly growing market segment and I see no reason that blu ray won't expand with it.
Gus @ Nov 14th 2008 12:04AM
I agree with you, but HDTV's are hardly mainstream yet, and reported here a few months ago it said that the attach rates for blu ray SA players to HDTV's was about 1 in 50, add in PS3 and it's still low........blu ray will continue it's small growth IMO, but it will NOT go mainstream this holiday season as many are predicting.