Survey reveals 13% have never heard about HD

Even as we barrel through the closing months of the decade, a new survey from Frank N. Magid Associates reveals a stunning revelation: 13% of Americans still ask, "What's HD?"

According to this article from Home Media Magazine, the new results show a mixed outlook on the current state of the High Definition market. While somewhere between 33 and 50 percent of American's have at least one HD set in their home, according to the survey, and only 66 percent of the HDTV owners are actually subscribing to HD content. This means that a large one-third of the HDTV owning population is still watching standard definition content on their high-def displays. Magid estimates that up to 14 million HDTV owners don't have HD programming, leaving a large pool of possible HD subscribers for cable and satellite TV providers to sign up for programming. However, the survey showed that close to one-third of respondents said that they "didn't want to pay for HD programming." Maryann Baldwin, Vice President of Magid Media Futures, said, “The disparity between HDTV ownership and service adoption reveals challenges for programmers. Some consumers were driven to purchase HDTVs under the erroneous assumption that they would be prepared for the digital transition, and didn't buy an HDTV set for the value of the programming in the first place.” The survey also shows a possible marketing problem for HD televisions, as a stunning 13 percent of Americans have no idea what high definition is. Since HD technology has been around since the nineties, and has been in the mainstream market for much of the past decade, how could it be possible for so many Americans to have no clue what HD is? The survey also shows that many people might upgrade to HD offerings from cable and satellite providers. Sixteen percent of respondents said they may sign up for HD satellite service, while 22 percent said they may sign up for competing HD cable offerings.