Study: more than 50 percent of US owns digital TVs

Just over half of all American households have at least one digital TV in their home, says the Consumer Electronics Association. The group, which hosts the CES expo each January, notes that at least 50 percent have one or more sets that can accept a digital signal without a set-top box or other adapter. An increasing number of these are HDTV sets and should account for 79 percent of all TVs sold in the country over the course of 2008. the Association says. TV makers themselves are expected to sell as many as 18 percent more sets over the same timeframe than they have in 2007.

The adoption of digital TV is widely anticipated to accelerate once again in February 2009, when the Federal Communications Commission will demand that all analog over-the-air broadcast TV shut down in favor of digital broadcasts, cable, and satellite. The resulting opening in the 700MHz spectrum is likely to be used for wide-area Internet access and cellular data once an upcoming FCC auction licenses the spectrum to a winning bidder. A $40 coupon program is being prepared that will offer owners of incompatible TVs a discount on analog-to-digital converter boxes.

Filed under: industry
Other story tags: FCC, CES, 700MHz, HDTV