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The revolution has been televised: Survey reports 53% of U.S. homes with HDTV

by Richard Lawler posted Aug 7th 2009 at 12:55PM


Congratulations HDTV owners, you are now in the majority, at least according to the results of the latest Pulse report from Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing. That's a sharp rise over previous stats (33% in February / 23% in November '08 from Nielsen, 34% last fall from Leichtman Research Group) but not totally out of line, given the post DTV switch era we find ourselves in. While that number may still seem a bit high just based on our own anecdotal evidence, a quick look at the purpose of the group and its members bodes well for high definition fans, hopefully the cable companies and channels that make up much of its base take heed to these numbers and ramp up the HD expansion -- we'll keep dreaming the impossible dream of dialed back QAM compression and HD only channel packages.

Nielsen stats find 33% of U.S. households with at least one HDTV

by Richard Lawler posted May 21st 2009 at 11:41PM


A good six months after the Leichtman Research group published figures pushing HDTV penetration over one third of the U.S., Nielsen's February survey has produced similar numbers, indicating a rise from the 23% it found prior to the holiday season. Whatever the cause for the jump and the discrepancy, there's plenty of numbers to digest, for those into that. Want to know how many televisions (including SD) the average HDTV owner has? 3. There's still a gap between those who have an HDTV, and the 28% actually able watch HDTV broadcasts, assumed to exist not only because of a lack of consumer education, but also that people are unwilling to add to their cable/satellite bill on a monthly basis to tune in to HD. Punch the read link for the full breakdown, we're sure there's an interesting factoid or trend buried in there somewhere.

Nielsen reports: 23% of US households have an HDTV

by Darren Murph posted Dec 11th 2008 at 11:29AM


Ruh roh, we've got some conflicting evidence to deal with. Just last month, the Leichtman Research Group reported that some 34% of American households were HDTV-equipped, and now the highly respected Nielsen has stepped forward with a figure much, much lower. In fact, its latest numbers show that just 23.3% of all US homes have an HDTV, noting that it has more than doubled since a 10% penetration rating was found in July 2007. As for specific regions, the nation's capital was found to be most aware, with 31.1% of homes having a high-def set. Following DC were Boston and New York at 30.5% and 30.2%, respectively, while Detroit had the lowest percentage for a major market at 20.9%. Hmm... who to believe?

[Via AdWeek]

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.

DVD player sales sinking, no one surprised

by Darren Murph posted Nov 13th 2007 at 1:21AM

Earlier this year, we saw reports that hinted at "flat" DVD sales for the remainder of 2007, so it follows logic to hear that standalone DVD players are seeing a similar fate. Reportedly, around 80-percent of US consumers have a DVD player somewhere in their domicile, which reinforces the fact that the market is pretty well saturated. Furthermore, sales of the aforementioned units have "declined 15-percent for the 12 months ending September 2007," and that's coming off of a 24-percent slide the year before. As for DVD recorders, things aren't look too much brighter; sales of these gizmos were also down 15-percent during the year ending September 2007, which is quite a change from the 50-percent uptick it saw during the same window last year. Still, none of this should come as a surprise to anyone remotely paying attention, as the age of HD films has officially arrived -- even though we've yet to choose a single format to lead us down glory road. Nevertheless, we still foresee quite a few people picking up incredibly inexpensive DVD players as gifts this holiday season, but we highly doubt you'll need to throw down on anyone in aisle five this year to get your hands on one.

[Image courtesy of NY Times]

HD DVD nearing the half million mark in standalone player sales?

by Darren Murph posted Nov 12th 2007 at 5:50PM


Just days after the HD DVD camp trumpeted the fact that 90,000 standalone players were sold in a single weekend after price cuts enabled the units to suddenly fit into quite a few budgets, the same team is now boasting that nearly 500,000 players have been moved to date. Granted, we're taking these numbers with a throw of salt, but according to Home Media Magazine, the recent price slashing has created around 100,000 new HD DVD owners, which, combined with the 320,000 or so units already in homes adds up to around 420,000. Apparently, backers of the format are surmising that the half million mark could be broken by the time Black Friday has made its mark. 'Course, these numbers mean little in the grand scheme of things, but you can bet it'll get people talking.




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