The Switch from Analog to Digital TV

Nielsen reviews its data on consumer preparedness for June 2009's transition to all-digital television broadcasting. By the time the June 12 deadline arrived, most U.S. homes were ready for the conversion to digital. There was a sharp decline in the number of completely unready homes (just 2.5% of U.S. households) for the digital transition in the week leading up to the digital transition. And as of October 4, that number was reduced to 0.5%. Those homes that were completely unready were more likely to be African American, Hispanic, Asian, younger, lower income, and were less likely to have Internet access. In general, unready homes represented just 1-2% of total television tuning before the June 12th transition. Television sets that were not ready for the digital transition were viewed about one-third of the time compared to ready sets. Unready sets were viewed 1.5 hours a day on average, while ready sets were viewed 5.1 hours per day. And in the week leading up to the analog shut off, almost 60% of unready sets had no television tuning at all. Unready sets were typically found in rooms that are not focal points of television viewing, such as secondary bedrooms, kitchens and other locations. The location of these sets corresponds to the fact that they were used less for television viewing. In total, TV stations that transitioned to digital only experienced an 8% share decline immediately following the analog shut-off.Stations that changed channel positions from UHF (ultra high frequency) to VHF (very high frequency) were more impacted, showing a 13% share decline.