The Nielsen Company's new quarterly overview of American media habits highlights the increasing number of households that don't watch TV on a TV. Nielsen reports that these households -- many of which have a TV but don't use it to receive broadcast/cable/satellite signals -- represent about 5% of the country and have increased from about 2 million to about 5 million since 2007. They skew young and don't see the value in paying for TV service:
"Cost (36%) & lack of interest (31%) are the main reasons for "zero-TV" homes, with only 18% of these households considering subscribing to television services."
This trend has some sort-of obvious consequences for the future of content distribution, but what stands out to me is these households' lack of interest in free television. I can understand having a preference for Netflix or iTunes or illegal downloads over paying for cable, but Nielsen reports that 75% of these "zero-TV" households have working TV sets.
That means that unless these people are living in the mountains, in caves, or in nuclear test zones, they could plug an antenna into their TV and get a free over-the-air signal, but they do not. Based solely on people I know, I have the impression that a lot of people don't know it's possible to get an HDTV signal for free simply by plugging an antenna into a TV and turning it on. I think that says a whole lot about what is available on broadcast television.
The use (and underuse and poor use) of the television spectrum is a pet concern of mine, and the increasing number of people who want new media content but opt out of free broadcast TV is a pretty clear sign that this public resource could be better utilized.
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