Public awareness of DTV transition up 80% since 2006, some still in the dark

We've already heard the NTIA's plans to educate consumers as the digital TV transition draws ever closer here in America, and apparently, the efforts so far have been fairly successful. According to new research released by the Consumer Electronics Association, consumer awareness of the looming switchover is up 80-percent since 2006. The study also points out that 72-percent of respondents were schooled courtesy of ads seen on television, while 39-percent heard it through the grapevine (read: "friends and family") and 26-percent found out from the intarwebs. 'Course, we also heard that a whopping 22-percent of folks "had no plans" for the cutover last November, so we're sure there's still a few OTA-only homes out there that have a real shocker comin'.

[Via Widescreen Review]

[morphinapg Posted Feb 9th 2008 2:15AM]

I was pretty surprised when my grandma called and asked me to come take a look to see if she needed a new TV (I didn't need to look I know she does lol). And she wants me to help her buy a new HDTV, pretty cool. I'm sure the only difference she will notice though is that it's bigger lol.

[bommai Posted Feb 9th 2008 12:25PM]

I think all analog stations should have a permanent weather-bug like icon on the screen with a count down to channel shutoff. They should also have full screen announcements multiple times a day. If this does not inform the OTA watchers, I don't know what will.

[Student Driver Posted Feb 9th 2008 2:56PM]

Strangely, Cox just released a statement that they were keeping analog signals for at least 3 years beyond the 2009 turnover date. That's a bummer, since it keeps enabling people to stick with the old stuff. However, since you can't buy NTSC-only tuners anymore it should work itself out.

http://www.cox.com/support/cable/transition_main.asp

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 11th 2008 11:08AM]

Consumer Reports and HearUsNow.org have a great information site on DTV.
http://www.hearusnow.org/tvradio/12/

And they set up a way to share your experience with the transition to digital television.
http://cu.convio.net/HUN_shareyourDTVstorypage

Consumer Reports site with all the info: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/electronics-computers/news-electronics-computers/pulling-the-plug-on-analog-tv-206/index.htm