48% of US households aware of digital TV transition
48% of US households are aware of the digital TV transition, compared to just 29% from a survey taken in July 2005. Groups most familiar with the transition are subscribers to broadband services (45%), digital cable service (40%), and basic cable service (39%). 17% of survey respondents, representing more than 19 mln homes, don’t have any televisions connected to a video service provider. Households that don’t have any televisions connected to a video service provider were least familiar with the transition at 31%. 47% of respondents said they do not know when the digital transition will occur, and 26% believe it will take place sometime other than the designated year 2009. Of those who are aware of the DTV transition, 38% said they’d learned about it from TV; 26% had read of it in the newspaper; and 20% had heard about it from friends or family. 50% of households that watch TV exclusively over the air said they don’t know where to turn for information about the transition. The majority of households that currently receive cable, satellite or any other TV service have all their TV sets connected to some type of TV service, therefore are unlikely to need digital-to-analog converters to keep their analog TV sets working. However, 25% of these connected households, or 23.3 mln homes, said they also have at least one or more unconnected sets in their homes. 40% of households with an unconnected television set said they use those sets to watch broadcast TV programs only; 22% use them to watch DVDs; and 16% use them for video games, CTAM reports.