Study Says HDTVs in More Than 50 Percent of American Homes

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A recent Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) tracking Pulse report shows strong growth over the past year in HDTV ownership. In 2009, 53 percent of total U.S. households report owning a high definition television, an 18 percentage point increase in ownership over 2008, when 35 percent of households reported owning an HDTV (23 percent in 2007). Among HDTV set owners, 69 percent now subscribe to high definition service, compared to 56 percent a year ago.

Ownership of large screen televisions -32 inches and larger - has also seen solid growth. In 2009, 59 percent of households owned one, up from 52 percent in 2008 (44 percent in 2007).

CTAM's June/July Pulse Tracking Entertainment and Technology: Consumer Value in Media, explores the adoption of entertainment and technology products and services, and the likelihood for future adoption.

In 2009, digital cable market penetration was 34 percent, satellite was 28 percent, and telephone company penetration was 6 percent. Overall, cable has 53 percent of the market.

"Cable continues to be the preferred provider for television services. Cable launched the digital tier well after satellite started selling an all-digital service, yet its customer numbers surpass those of the combined DBS companies," said CTAM President and CEO Char Beales.

The CTAM tracking study also took a look at recent movers and which technologies they are likely to purchase and services they're likely to subscribe to over the next year. Movers are more likely than non-movers to buy an HDTV set (26 percent vs. 15 percent), a laptop (24 percent vs. 16 percent), and a video game system (23 percent vs. 7 percent); as well as subscribe to HD programming service (15 percent vs. 8 percent) and DVR service (17 percent vs. 7 percent).

This research is based on a telephone survey conducted by CENTRIS as part of the CENTRIS(sm) omnibus survey conducted from June 5 through 14, 2009. The sample includes 1,144 randomly selected adult consumers age 18+. This study has a +/- 3.5 percentage point margin of error.

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