TORONTO – While high definition television offers the clearest, highest-quality TV picture available, Canadians’ want to see a more robust content and pricing picture before they commit, according to a report released today.
Astral Media’s The Movie Network, one of the leaders of HD programming in Canada with its own all-HD movie channel launching today, commissioned survey company Ipsos-Reid to find out what Canadians know about HDTV and what they have in their homes.
The survey found that
* Only 14% of Canadians currently have an HD-ready television set.
* Of those who have an HD-ready television set, more than half (54%) do not have the set-top box required to deliver HD-quality picture. As a result, only 6% of Canadians are actually viewing programming in high definition
* Among this group, 41% cite lack of content as the primary reason for not having an HD set-top box; 16% were not aware that a box was required.
* 1 in 5 Canadians plan to buy an HD television set, with 46% of this group planning to make the purchase within the next year.
* One in five (19%) claim they do not have an HD set-top box because they are satisfied watching only DVDs on their HD television sets. This may be tied to the fact that although DVDs cannot currently be viewed in true HD, HD-ready television sets do up-convert letterbox DVDs into wide-screen images which consumers find acceptable.
“High Definition Television, or HDTV, delivers brilliant, high-resolution images in a wide-screen format that is up to five times clearer than standard-definition televisions. HDTV also provides CD-quality audio and rivals the picture quality, wide-screen format and surround-sound experience of a movie theatre,” touts today’s press release.
While the survey and recent reports would indicate that HD technology is still in the early stages of adoption in Canada, one in five Canadians who do not currently have an HD-ready television do indicate that they plan to buy one, with almost half (46%) planning to purchase an HD-ready TV within the next year.
“The results of this survey confirm that a significant proportion of Canadians are demanding a critical mass of HD content before they are willing to commit to the technology," says Domenic Vivolo, senior vice-president, marketing and sales, Astral Television Networks.
“Content is king in the world of HD," added Michael McEwen, president of Canadian Digital Television (CDTV). "Increased content will be essential to increasing the adoption rate for high definition in Canada. As with any technology, application and content are required to justify the expenditure in the minds of consumers. The launch of networks dedicated to high-definition content, such as The Movie Network HD, will demonstrate to those in the industry that this is a technology to be invested in, and will make inroads with a consumer population who is still taking a ‘wait and see’ approach when it comes to HD."
Other survey results include:
* 48% of Ontario respondents indicate that there is "not sufficient HD content currently available" as the reason for not having an HD set-top box.
* Men (24%) without an HD-ready TV are more likely than women (14%) to buy an HD-ready TV set.
* Among those Canadians who plan to buy an HD-ready television, 10% say that they will buy it in the next three months; 6% plan to buy in three to six months; 30% will buy in six months to a year; and, a total of 53% will buy in a year or more from now.
The main reasons that Canadians who do not currently have an HD television set are disinterested in buying an HD-ready TV set are:
* Cost – 36% of Canadians are not planning to buy an HD-ready TV set because of the cost of the television sets; and,
*Awareness – 15% still don’t know enough about HD.
Interestingly, 42% of women, as opposed to 27% of men, are not planning to buy an HD-ready TV set because of cost, while 12% of men compared to 4% of women say it’s because there is not enough content currently available. Indicating that men are more likely than women to need assurances of greater content to adopt HD and women are more likely than men to need a less-expensive product offering.
The Movie Network HD Survey was conducted by Ipsos-Reid between April 19 and April 21, 2005. A representative randomly selected sample of 1,000 adult Canadians of 18 years of age or older was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within (+/-) 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled.
