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Nine months to go before the U.S. gives birth to an all-digital television landscape, and a new report from Nielsen shows the patient may be having some labor pains.

As reported by the New York Times’ Brian Stelter, Nielsen Media Research’s findings on the state of DTV readiness show that 25 million “unprepared” households have at least one TV that will go dark after February 17, 2009, the date all TV stations stop sending out analog signals and switch to digital. “Completely unready” are the words used to describe 10 million of those 25 million homes; that is, all the TV’s in their homes - if they have more than one TV - get their signals via antenna. That’s 17 percent of all prime-time viewing. Nielsen says that African-American and Hispanic households will bear the brunt of the lost signals.

The Consumer Electronics Association, the trade group that represents most of the companies manufacturing TV’s, has begun its DTV educational campaign. For the CEA, it’s all about context. CEA spokesman Jason Oxman told me in an email response that Nielsen is counting as unprepared homes that do have some kind of digital cable or satellite access. “Put another way, if there is even one TV in a cable/satellite household that is not plugged into the service (for example, it is used to watch DVDs or play video games), Nielsen counts that household as unprepared,“ Oxman says. “For the 86 percent of US households that subscribe to cable or satellite, the DTV transition does not impact their ability to watch TV.“

Those homes labeled “completely unready” do have some work to do before next February, Oxman says, including buying a digital TV, getting cable or satellite, or using a $40 government-issued coupon to buy a converter box.

More numbers courtesy of Oxman and the CEA, which is a founding member of the DTV Transition Coalition:

• More than 50 percent of U.S. households already have a digital TV.
• More than 81 million DTV’s have been sold in the U.S. since the first models were introduced in 1998.
• An additional 30 million DTV’s are expected to sell in 2008.

The New York Times article highlights the potential for lost ratings and ad revenue by local stations and national networks with all those TV’s not working, which would only compound the hurt caused by the recent strike-shortened season. But Oxman argues there’s still time and that some remedies haven’t been on store shelves for very long. “Because Nielsen labeled anyone as ‘unready’ who hasn’t already purchased a converter box, and because such boxes (and indeed the government coupon program) have only been available for a few months, I would hesitate to use the Nielsen study as an indication of ‘readiness.‘“

What about the possible impact on black and Hispanic households? Oxman says the list of DTV Transition Coalition partners, which the CEA supplies with video and printed resources, includes some of “the nation’s leading public interest and civil rights groups.“ A visit to the DTVTransition.org website shows those groups include the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Council of La Raza, the Urban League, the National Hispanic Media Coalition and the National Black Church Initiative.

Oxman doesn’t elaborate further, but the inference is clear: by joining the coalition, these groups took upon themselves a measure of responsibility to educate their constituents about the need to prepare homes for the transition. And NBC/Universal, which owns Telemundo (reaching 93 percent of U.S. Hispanic households) should probably think about adding even more Spanish-language public service announcements about the transition in key markets.

Read [New York Times]

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