Study: Many HDTV Owners Still not Viewing HDTV

A new study from In-Stat has shown again that having an HD set in the house doesn’t mean the owners are watching HD programming.

In fact, out of more than 39 million households with HDTVs, some 17 million homes never actually view HDTV programming.

That leaves 22 million households—about a fifth of the country, and 40 percent more than a year ago—watching real HDTV on their HDTV sets.

The research by In-Stat also found that HDTV service remains limited to a relatively small number of countries, primarily the United States and Japan;

At year-end 2008, there were more than 36 million HDTV households worldwide, up from 29 million at the end of 2007.

The number of European HDTV households is rising will not reach 10 million until 2011, In-Stat said.

The complete study, Worldwide HDTV Households: 36 Million and Growing is available for sale from In-Stat.