Almost a week after the DTV transition, about 2.5 million U.S. households, or 2.2 percent of the TV public, are without TV service, according to data from Nielsen.
These numbers are an improvement of 300,000 households since Nielsen last collected DTV numbers on June 7. At that point about 2.5 percent of the U.S. was totally unready for the switch from analog to digital signals.
The Albuquerque-Santa Fe TV markets have the largest percentage of unprepared households at 6.85 percent. In terms of actual unprepared households, Los Angeles tops the list with 225,040 homes without service, which is 3.98 percent of its residents.
Nielsen broke out its data by race and found that African Americans are most likely to be unready, at 4.6 percent. About 3.6 percent of Hispanics did not prepare, followed by 3.2 percent of Asians, and 1.6 percent of whites.
Though many people joked on June 12 that their grandparents would not be able to watch TV now, only about 1.1 percent of people over 55 are unprepared. In fact, about 4.4 percent of people under 35 are still not ready. Those numbers are an improvement of about 2 percentage points since June 7 for both groups.
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June 18, 2009 12:28 PM
It doesn't matter if the federal government gives us till the second coming. There will always, for no matter what reason, be those who don't and won't be prepared on time and will blame the government and on top of that will want a FREE converter for the trouble.
June 18, 2009 12:35 PM
Nielsen counts it as a success if you can now receive ANYTHING. The FCC also received over 3 million hits on their DTV info website on Friday alone. DTV Across America estimates that over 5 million households are still struggling to make the transition. Go to the DTV Across America website www.DTVAcrossAmerica.com or call their toll-free number 1-800-359-1299 if scanning your converter box is not enough.
June 19, 2009 4:09 AM
Well, this is something already out of our control. It's up to people to get their DTV coupons and use them up, and if they don't or are unaware then it's simply just out of our hands. We can't force people to switch their TVs to digital.
June 19, 2009 8:01 PM
Well, there you have it . . . they should have never given that money to AIG. If they'd kept it, they could buy 5 million LCD TV's for those without digital. And a subwoofer. For every man, woman and child in the U.S.
June 20, 2009 12:59 PM
Hah! @Barky: That's a bailout I can get behind! :D