Over 50 Million Households Use Digital Terrestrial as Primary TV Source

More Than 90% is DVB-T

AUSTIN, Texas — According to the DisplaySearch ‘2009 Worldwide Digital Broadcasting: DTV Trends Around the Globe,’ consumers worldwide are rapidly transitioning to digital terrestrial broadcast. Over 50 million households are already using digital terrestrial as their primary source of TV programming content. At least an additional 10 million households will transition to digital this year as the analog switch-off forces consumers to change in the US.

“To date, six countries have already switched off their analog broadcasting and nearly the entire world is expected to have completed analog switch-off by the end of 2015,” noted Paul Gray, DisplaySearch Director of Europe TV Research. “The analog switch-off is now hitting center-stage with the transition in the United States, and will dramatically shape the TV value chain in the same way that color did in the 1960s and 1970s. In the future we can expect further refreshes of digital broadcasting.”

DisplaySearch’s research also indicated that digital terrestrial TV projects are active in 53 countries around the world, and the majority are already transmitting commercial services. Analog broadcasting is switching off to clear the radio spectrum for HDTV and other applications such as mobile internet and data services.

Research also showed that DVB-T is by far the most popular standard, with an estimated 47 million households using it as their main source of entertainment. DVB-T households are not just in Europe but Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Taiwan, South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. In addition, 2.5 million consumers use ATSC, increasing to around 12 million after analog switch-off in the US. In Japan, 23.5 million households own ISDB-T receivers.

The DisplaySearch ‘2009 Worldwide Digital Broadcasting: DTV Trends Around the Globe’ provides a detailed analysis of the different reception habits of consumers in all major TV-buying countries, in satellite, cable, analog and digital terrestrial. Overall regional summaries are also included in this report, including North America, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, South Asia, China and Japan.