Nielsen: 70.5% of Households "Unready" in November Acquired Converter Boxes

19.7% of those unready homes ordered cable, 9.6% went to satellite

By Claire Atkinson -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/11/2009 6:09:09 PM

The Nielsen Co. reports that almost 70.5% of households that were defined as “unready” for the digital transition back in November, acquired a digital converter box. That should help keep a fair number of viewers glued to the broadcast TV stations.

However, a further 19.7% of those unready homes ordered cable, while 9.6% went to satellite. The figures are based on what Nielsen has seen in its 18,000 sample homes in the United States.

Shari Ann Brill, senior VP programming Carat, says she is not expecting the digital transition to have a large impact on ratings but says, “it could affect Spanish language broadcasting.” Minority groups who are unready occur in larger numbers than the traditional population.

Talkback

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How many bought digital TVs which would not require a converter box or cable/sat services? A little hard to believe that nobody did.

Robert Quinn - 6/12/2009 12:17:08 PM EDT

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DTV is sales op for cable and satellite players

06/11/2009

Nielsen: 10% of U.S. Households Not Ready for DTV Conversion

02/15/2008

NAB Disagrees With Nielsen's Calculation Of Digitally Unready Households

03/12/2009

Nielsen Gives Fuzzy Picture of HDTV Penetration

10/30/2007

Survey: Viewers Report Better Picture Across All Channels After Getting Converter Box

05/11/2009

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