Two days out from the June 12 digital TV transition, about 2.5 percent of U.S. households are completely unready for the switch, according to the latest data from Nielsen.
About 2.8 million households have not taken steps to prepare for the switch from analog to digital TV signals. Homes with younger people, African Americans, and Hispanics are most likely to be unprepared. The elderly, meanwhile, are ready to go.
"Since February, when the U.S. government postponed the transition for three months, the number of households that are completely unready has been cut in half - from 5.8 million to 2.8 million homes," Sara Erichson with Nielsen said in a blog post. "Given the importance that television plays in the day-to-day life of most people, we expect that the most of the remaining unready homes will take the necessary steps to get ready once the stations make the final switch to digital transmission."
This latest data is a slight improvement from stats published on May 28, which said 2.7 percent of households were clueless about the transition. When Congress decided to push the switch from Feb. 17 to June 12, unreadiness was at 6 percent.
Almost 1,000 stations will switch to digital signals on Friday. Most of those switches - nearly 500 - will occur between 6pm and midnight. Other stations have opted to switch between midnight and 6am, 6am and noon, and noon and 6pm, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
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June 10, 2009 3:18 PM
"Sara Erichson with Nielsen said in a blog post. "Given the importance that television plays in the day-to-day life of most people"
So she and the tv people would like to think,,
Most people can do without the 60% advertisement
we have today.
June 10, 2009 5:31 PM
Hmm. I think 2.5% is pretty low. I didn't mind the initial delay, but it's at the point now where that 2.5% probably isn't worth the ruckus that the other 97.5% is making over why this hasn't been done already.
Let's go ahead and do it - if for no other reason than we don't have to hear people complain about why it's not finished and we can all go back to not noticing any real difference. :/
June 11, 2009 12:39 AM
Well, who cares anyways? There's very little worth watching on television anymore. I had DirecTV satellite service, but pulled the plug two years ago this month, and I hardly miss it at all. If it weren't for History Channel, Discovery Channel, A&E, National Geographic and SciFi, I'd have given up ten years earlier. I'll consider watching again when DirecTV or Dish Network offer à la carte programming so I don't have to pay for 200 channels when all I want or need is ten channels. I'm tired of paying for television and also having to put up with incessant advertisements.