In his column in the Jan. 19 edition of TV Technology , the Masked Engineer Mario Orazio cites figures from some recent studies to support his contention that much of the public does not really care about HDTV. For example, in one survey of 750 households, 43 percent said that they would "probably" never buy another ordinary TV.
Mario points out that, two years before Congress wants to shut down NTSC broadcasting, less than half of the households surveyed stated that they would probably not buy another NTSC set. He further mentions that the CEA reported last November that 60 percent of 2004 factory sales of plasma sets were non-HDTV, while according to the same report, 70 percent of 2003 plasma factory sales were HDTV sets. Finally, he cites a November study by Lichtman Research. "While 65 percent of HDTV owners report that they are receiving HD programming from their cable or satellite TV company, industry analysis reveals that the true figure is about half of that total," according to the study. Conclusions are left to the reader.
