Nielsen: 3.3M Still Unready for DTV

Unprepared Ranks Shrink a Bit to 2.9% from 3.1%

by John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 5/13/2009 4:25:59 PM

WASHINGTON —

According to Nielsen, 3.3 million homes (2.9%) are completely unready for the transition to digital TV, meaning they don't have cable, satellite or a DTV set and have not hooked up a digital-to-analog converter box, though they may have one.
That is down from the 3.5 million or 3.1% unready only two weeks ago.
Nielsen Media Research released the new figure Wednesday, 30 days before the June 12 transition date. But it did not release it fast enough to prevent the Federal Communications Commission from invoking that 3.5 million figure Wednesday in its own DTV transition update, using that number to underscore the urgency of educating and assisting high-risk DTV populations like seniors and minorities.
Seniors may be high-risk, but the Nielsen numbers continue to show them to be the most ready, with 1.6% unready in Wednesday's update, compared to the most-unready group, which is actually the 18-to-34 demographic (5.4%).
Making the biggest percentage gain in readiness was the Asian category, which improved from 4.1% unready as of April 26 to 3.4% unready as of Wednesday.