88 Percent of Hispanic Households Know About Switch to Digital TV
June 23, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC — With eight months to go before the nation transitions to all-digital television (DTV) broadcasting, awareness among America's most at-risk population—broadcast-only Hispanic households—has tripled.
Transition Awareness
A new poll released today by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) found 88 percent of overall Hispanic households were aware that television broadcasting would be switching to a digital format, up from 74 percent in a January 2008 survey commissioned by NAB.
The results also showed a dramatic rise in awareness among the transition's most at-risk population: broadcast-only Hispanic households, meaning homes that get free reception exclusively over the air using rooftop or indoor television antennas. Of this group, 91 percent stated they knew about the upcoming switch, a significant jump from a September 2007 poll that reported only 31 percent as being aware.
Even among Spanish-speaking households, awareness remains high. Eighty-nine percent of respondents who chose to participate in the survey interview in Spanish were aware of the digital transition, as were 90 percent of those who were interviewed in English.
"Previously, Hispanic Americans showed much lower levels of awareness about DTV with respect to the overall U.S. population, with particularly low rates for Spanish-speaking households," said Seth Geiger, president of Smith-Geiger LLC, which conducted the poll between March 29 and May 13, 2008. "This survey shows that those gaps have been nearly closed."
Hearing about Transition
The findings indicate that intense consumer outreach efforts led by broadcasters have succeeded in penetrating the Hispanic population, one of the most disproportionately affected by the transition. When asked how they heard about the switch, 68 percent of Hispanic households recalled seeing messages on TV.
According to a Knowledge Networks/SRI Home Technology Monitor survey, Hispanics make up 31.8 percent of over-the-air U.S. households, and more than 40 percent of Spanish-speaking households are over the air.
"Having learned early on that Spanish-speaking homes depend on free broadcast television more than any other group, we made sure that language wouldn't become a barrier to families getting the best television has to offer," said NAB Vice President for Digital Television Jonathan Collegio.
Broadcasters Reaching Out
On June 24, information about DTV will be on display for Hispanic organizations nationwide at Esperanza USA's annual conference and prayer breakfast in Washington, D.C. In partnership with NAB, Esperanza has agreed to use its 10,000-strong network of Hispanic faith and community-based agencies around the country to educate Hispanics on the switch to digital. Besides distributing literature at this week's National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast, Esperanza is also providing DTV information in its monthly communications to members.
Since 2007, NAB has been working with Spanish-language network Univision on a series of town hall meetings about the DTV transition. The hour-long televised events have already drawn huge audiences in Chicago and San Francisco, and many more are planned in some of the nation's largest Spanish-language television markets, including New York, Miami and Atlanta.
Spanish-speaking broadcasters have also joined NAB's DTV Speakers Bureau to explain to their communities how to prepare for the switch. NAB has provided its partners with free DTV-related educational materials, as well as TV and radio public service announcements, in both English and Spanish.
By law, every full-power television station must begin broadcasting only in digital on February 17, 2009. Over-the-air viewers will need to upgrade their TV sets to DTV by either purchasing a converter box or digital TV set, or subscribing to a pay service, such as cable or satellite.
