(Editor’s Note: The following was sent to me from an EMGR reader. It shows that HD TV is increasing viewers and keeping them in front of their TV longer rather than in the bedroom.. Local TV stations take note. Thanks to an EMGR Team reader who found and sent this story from CNET News.com)
From CNETNews.com November 16, 2006
SAN JOSE, Calif.--The numbers are in, and it appears that high-definition television is getting Americans to spend more time glued to their TV than ever before.
Yay, says Bryan Burns, vice president of strategic planning and development at ESPN HD. HD popularity means better TV sales and more advertising, of course.
Special report
Kickoff for HDTV
Sports programming is helping high-def TV become a mainstream phenomenon and a big moneymaker.
At a minimum, consumers seem to find high-definition TV a more compelling experience. In a survey conducted on behalf of ESPN, 22 percent of sports fans said they watched sporting events they would not have watched because they now have HDTV, while 22 percent of those who do not count themselves as sports fans reported that they watched more sports after going HD.
Meanwhile, 27 percent of viewers described as sports fans said they watched "significantly" more sports, while 44 percent said they watched somewhat more sports after getting HD. Sports fans, he added, spent an average of $2,400 on HDTV sets, while ordinary humans spent $1,525.
Thirty-two percent of respondents said whether a program is in HD influences what they watched.
Burns, who spoke at the Samsung Semiconductor Executive Summit here Wednesday, added that consumers spend a lot of time on ESPN radio and TV properties.
Self-described sports fans consume 1.43 hours of ESPN media a day. When only men who are self-described sports fans are taken into account, the number jumps to 2.08 hours a day.
By 2010, roughly 80 million HDTV sets will have been sold in America. That's a lot of people singing, "Are you ready for some football?"
ESPN has been one of the leaders in HD broadcasting. Back in 2002, the company was in the midst of switching from running its operations on standard analog video to digital broadcasting. Since it realized that it would have to upgrade to HD right afterward, it made both moves at once. Now, 95 percent of the programming that comes out of its Bristol, Conn., facility is in HD.
"Congress passed a law on February 1, 2006, setting a final deadline for the DTV transition of February 17, 2009. Most television stations will continue broadcasting both analog and digital programming until February 17, 2009, when all analog broadcasting will stop.." FCC http://www.dtv.gov/
EMGR Quick Observation: How come it took almost a week for the Erie Times-News to know it had a story (Cable Customers Could Lose Shows) that first appeared in an ad in their own paper and then on EMGR? (thanks to an observant EMGR Team reader) That's a real bad slip by ET-N.
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2 comments:
Consider that ETN owns a 30% interest in the City cable operation, and I think you can see why news with a potentially negative effect for TW isn't pushed to the front. If TW loses those channels, buy stock in Dish Network, which by the way, Lilly owns a distributorship for. TW's loss is Lilly's gain! Must make for some difficult negotiations when one party wants a different outcome than what is said to be being negotiated in "good faith".
I didn't see that. If you see the piece, let us know what it was about.
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