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According to Nielsen, 3.6% (4.1 million) of the 114.5 million TV homes in the U.S. are currently not ready for the digital switch. That's a decline of 916,000 homes over the past month. At this rate, the level will continue to drop to 1.37 million homes or less by the June 12 transition date, marking 1.2% of homes that would lose reception.
If the switchover had happened on February 17 as planned, around 4.4% of homes would have been lost without service.
The group that has improved the most has been younger TV homes (the head of the household is 35 or under). Only 6.5% of these homes are unprepared, down from 7.2%. TV homes with viewers aged 55+ continue to be the best-prepared (just 2% are unready).
One reason that the preparedness rate has soared is that many TV stations have already dropped analog transmission, forcing homes that lost reception to take action.
The small percentage that may not be prepared in June would seem to be below projections, causing only minor declines in ratings at stations and networks.
Source: MediaPost, 03/20/2009
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