98.5% of US households now can access digital television one way or another, according to the latest report from Nielsen. The 1.5% still left behind comprises 1.7M households. 800K have caught up with the rest of America since 6/12/09. The progress has been even, with 400K households making it per week. Minorities and young adults are still the ones playing catch-up. Only 1.1% of White households are in the left-behind category, compared to 2.3% of Hispanics, 2.5% of Asians and 3.5% of African Americans. Only 0.6% of those aged 55 or older are left out, compared to 3.5% of those younger than 35.
RBR/TVBR observation: At this pace, we could completely complete the DTV transition in about a month. But that’s not the way it will work. As the total pool of left-behinds decreases, it will be harder and harder to convert 400K in a given week. We await with interest today’s FCC’s report and word of its plans to deal with this.
