Two Nielsen executives, Susan Whiting, Vice Chairman of the company, and Anne Elliot, a Vice President, spoke with the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, respectively, about the preparedness of some communities and audiences.

LA Times ~ 01/16/09: Few organizations have more influence over television broadcasting than the Nielsen Co., whose panels of viewers supply the ratings that help determine what advertisers pay for their commercial slots. Now, Nielsen is helping shape the debate over TV technology — in particular, the transition to digital. Using knowledge gained from its panels, the company has tracked how well prepared viewers are for the mid-February cut-off of analog channels. – full story

With the nationwide transition to digital TV in the U.S. little more than one month away, 6.8% of U.S. households remain unready for the switch to all-digital broadcasting, according to Nielsen.

Nielsen Wire recently spoke with Patricia McDonough, SVP of Insights, Analysis and Policy, Nielsen, about the company’s efforts to accurately measure TV viewing following the February 17 digital transition.

Nielsen Wire: What is Nielsen doing to prepare for the transition to digital TV broadcasting?

Patricia McDonough:
We are planning for a busy post-holiday season in which we expect many unprepared households to purchase new equipment.  Our field staff will be ready to visit these homes and make necessary connections to our meters.   We plan to have our field staff strategically located near our unprepared sample homes to be able to quickly respond to changes to equipment and service.

Nielsen’s dedicated digital transition team is examining every aspect of our television audience measurement process to prepare for the February 17 transition.  The team has coordinated efforts across the company from establishing new guidelines for our field staff to deal appropriately with questions from sample households, to providing clients with assistance understanding what will be necessary to ensure proper audience crediting.

We are also working with our clients to finalize the details of how we will deal with the days immediately following the transition, when some disruption may occur. That includes developing rules to deal with sample home viewing changes caused by the introduction of new equipment needed to make homes digitally ready.

The bottom line is that Nielsen is not in the business of predicting what the ratings will be; our primary responsibility is to report what is being viewed on television.  To that end, we do believe we are well prepared to provide audience estimates that will provide a realistic view of how people are watching television before, during, and after the switch to all-digital transmission.

Nielsen Wire: How will the transition to digital broadcasting affect Nielsen’s TV ratings?

Patricia McDonough:
To some extent, that remains to be seen.  Nielsen’s extensive preparations for the digital transition make us well positioned to measure and report viewing after February 17.  In the best case scenario, every household that is currently unprepared will take steps necessary and there will be no interruption.  In reality, that is unlikely — though Nielsen expects the majority of households to be ready.

Nielsen Wire: Will homes without digital converters still be counted as part of Nielsen’s TV panel?

Patricia McDonough:
Nielsen has always had rules for how long we can keep a sample home if they no longer have television.  We are reviewing those rules and are discussing with clients how they should be applied during the transition to digital TV.

If a sample home is no longer able to receive signals following the transition, one of the key factors affecting whether or not they stay in Nielsen’s panel will be their plans.  If a sample household advises Nielsen that they will make arrangement to become a working TV home again, we will work with them.  But if that home tells us they have decided to do nothing, they will likely be replaced.

Nielsen Wire: Which stations are affected by the transition: broadcast, cable, PBS?

Patricia McDonough:
The potential changes associated with the digital transition affect all players.  For broadcasters, it is vital that those households that rely solely on over-the-air signals make appropriate preparations.  By definition, these homes currently do all of their TV viewing via broadcast television.  If they purchase a new TV set or a digital converter box, broadcasters can maintain that advantage of being their sole provider of television information and entertainment.  If a household chooses to connect to cable, satellite, telco video offerings, or another source that would open new opportunities for viewing cable networks that were previously unavailable to that household.  As such, there are potential upsides and downsides for broadcast and cable networks alike.

Nielsen Wire: Are there other continuing challenges related to the digital transition that Nielsen will be tackling in the next year?

Patricia McDonough:
The media landscaping is continuously evolving — as such, there are always new challenges in measuring and reporting media consumption.  Nielsen’s job is to anticipate these and develop tools to accurately track consumers’ media habits.

One of the most important current trends is the use of Internet and mobile devices to watch television.  Nielsen’s clients need to know how all of these screens contribute to their total audience, and we working hard to integrate our resources to provide those answers.

As the digital transition approaches, stay tuned on Nielsen Wire for information and preparedness updates.

More at the FCC’s DTV.gov website.

Non-Hispanic households continue to be more ready for the transition than Hispanic households, but the rate of Hispanic readiness is picking up. After seeing no change in unready Hispanic households from October to November, that percentage dropped from 12.4% to 11.5% in December.

Younger households remain the least ready, but this month has seen their strongest monthly surge in preparation, with unready households dropping from 10.6% in November to 9.9% in December.

In the 56 local markets with metered measurements, Albuquerque is the most unprepared market with 13% of households still completely unprepared.  Tulsa (12.65%), Houston (12.41%), Dallas-Ft. Worth (11.71%), and Salt Lake City (10.63%) are the next four on the list.

Hartford-New Haven is the most prepared of Nielsen’s 56 metered markets — with only 2.6% of households still in need of a digital upgrade.

View complete data on digital preparedness in Nielsen’s 56 top local metered markets.

As the February 17, 2009 digital transition approaches, Nielsen will continue to track the readiness of TV households in the U.S. 

Readiness data are based on TV sets and households in Nielsen’s National People Meter panel, which is representative of U.S. television households, and Nielsen’s local metered panels, which are representative of their respective television household populations.

View the media alert.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in The Wall Street Journal, Broadcasting & Cable, The Hollywood Reporter, Multichannel News and The Coloradoan.

The percentage of completely unready households declined from 8.4% in September 2008 to 7.7% last month — the largest single-month change in the past six months, according to Nielsen.

Non-Hispanic households continue to be more ready than their Hispanic counterparts.  But in recent months, both Hispanic and non-Hispanic households have hastened their preparations for the digital transition. 

As the February 17, 2009 digital transition approaches, Nielsen will continue to track the readiness of TV households in the U.S.  

Readiness data are based on TV sets and households in Nielsen’s National People Meter panel, which is representative of U.S. television households, and Nielsen’s local metered panels, which are representative of their respective television household populations.

View the full media alert.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in Media Post, Multichannel News, and Broadcasting & Cable.

If the transition occurred today, those 9.6 million homes would unable to receive any television programming, while another 12.6 million households would have at least one television set that would no longer work.

In all, one in five U.S. households are either partially or completely unready for the government-mandated switch to digital programming that will occur on February 17, 2009.

Demographic Trends
Households headed by less educated, lower income, and blue collar workers are least prepared for the digital transition, according to Nielsen. Those whose total annual household income is less than $25,000 per year are five times more likely to be unprepared than households earning more than $75,000.

Older, white households are better prepared than their younger, African American, Asian, or Hispanic counterparts.  Thirteen percent of Hispanic households remain completely unready for the transition, as do 12.5% of African American households.

Geographic Trends
Among the 56 local markets Nielsen measures with electronic meters, Houston has the largest percentage (15.8%) of households that remain completely unready for the transition to digital TV.  In contrast, the Ft. Myers, Florida market, with only 2.4% of homes unready, is best prepared for the switch.

View complete data on digital preparedness in Nielsen’s 56 top local metered markets and 154 local diary markets.

Read Nielsen’s complete report on digital readiness in the U.S.

View the full press release.

Go behind the data: read NielsenWire’s Q&A with Steve McGowan, co-author of Nielsen’s most recent report on the transition to digital TV.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings on Bloomberg and in TV Week, Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News, Radio Business Report, and Mediaweek.

NielsenWire recently spoke with the co-author of Nielsen’s most recent report on the transition to digital TV, Steve McGowan, Senior Vice President, Insights and Client Research Initiatives, Nielsen.

NielsenWire: How has digital preparedness changed since Nielsen’s last report this past spring?

Steve McGowan:
Not all that much.  Since last May, when 9.8% of homes were “completely unready,” the number has dropped by just 1.4 percentage points — to 8.4%.

NielsenWire: So, how prepared are Americans for the switch to digital TV?

Steve McGowan:
The digital transition in American homes is happening at a casual rate: more than 9 million homes – that’s 8.4% of all U.S. homes – are still completely unready.

Spanish-language broadcast networks are still more vulnerable: 26% of tuning to these networks is done on “unready TV sets” — compared to 15% for English-language broadcast networks.

“Unready sets” are disproportionately found in the kitchen or secondary bedroom, as opposed to the living room or master bedroom, and may not get “upgraded” by February – or ever.

NielsenWire: Which demographics are most — and least — prepared for the transition to digital TV?

Steve McGowan:
Readiness rates are correlated with household income and head of household education.  Overall, we found that a larger proportion of “unready” homes are African American (12.5%) and Hispanic (13.0%).  Homes where Spanish is the primary language are most “unready” for the digital transition. 

Perhaps surprisingly to some, readiness rates are higher in older households.  Some might expect older people to be less ready for the digital transition, but in fact, they are better prepared, on average.

NielsenWire: What findings, if any, surprised you?

Steve McGowan:
With all the attention given to the coupon program for external digital tuner boxes, to date only one-fourth of the sets that were “upgraded” has one of these boxes.  As the transition date approaches, however, more homes may find this to be a better – and lower-cost — option than replacing the set altogether, or signing up for cable or satellite access.

NielsenWire: Why is this report still important?

Steve McGowan:
This series of reports tracks how Americans are responding to the conversion process.  Given the nation’s current economic turmoil, Americans may face additional financial hurdles in replacing or converting unready sets — we’ll be tracking that, as well.  As February 17 approaches, Nielsen will step up our reporting to better anticipate how viewing will be affected by the switch.

Get the latest data on digital readiness in the U.S.

Read Nielsen’s complete report on digital readiness in the U.S.

View complete data on digital preparedness in Nielsen’s 56 top local metered markets and 154 local diary markets.

Nielsen also took advantage of the first analog switch-off to study how the transition to digital TV transmissions affected Nielsen’s ability to collect and identify  broadcast codes that will be used to measure viewing in an all-digital broadcast environment, Adweek and RBR.com reported Tuesday.

The test was part of Nielsen’s own efforts to prepare for the country-wide transition to digital TV in February.

In the Wilmington market, Nielsen normally uses paper diaries to measure TV viewing.  Nielsen also has a small number of National People Meter households within the market. 

As part of Monday’s tests, two Wilmington TV stations encoded both their analog and digital signals, and Nielsen tested the ability of its “Super Sites” to monitor the codes and signatures used to identify TV programs in survey homes — both before and after Monday’s digital switch.

Results of the Wilmington tests will be released within one to two weeks.