A total of 710,000 homes in the United States could not receive a DTV signal as of Aug. 30, according to the latest research from The Nielsen Company.
Nielsen, which has steadily tracked the number of households unprepared for the DTV transition, reported Sept. 8 that 99.4 percent of homes in the country have the ability to receive DTV. The most recent percentage of homes unready for DTV, 0.6 percent, compares favorably with the 6.8 percent that were unprepared as of Dec. 21, 2008.
Four markets tracked by Nielsen’s electronic meters are completely prepared for DTV, including New York City; Nashville, TN; Louisville, KY; Providence, RI; and New Bedford, MA. In another 44 markets, less than 1 percent of households are unready for DTV.
The least ready market on a percentage basis in the latest Nielsen survey is Las Vegas, which surpassed Albuquerque-Santa FE, NM, with 2.18 percent, or a total of 15,879 homes, that have not taken the necessary steps to receive a DTV signal, Nielsen said.
By age, households headed by those under 35 continue to lag in preparedness compared to those of people older than 55, with 1.6 percent of the former unprepared versus 0.2 percent of the latter.
By ethnicity, the Nielsen figures revealed 1.3 percent of Hispanic, 1 percent of African-American, 0.5 percent of white and 0.4 percent of Asian households were unready for DTV.
On June 12, after a four-month postponement, full-power TV stations in the United States ceased analog transmission and inaugurated the era of DTV nationwide.
