HDTV To Reach 106.2 Million By 2010

The report’s author Zenobia Talati, explained the impending saturation saying: “HDTV has found a mainstream market in the US and Japan, and by 2010 we expect it to have made significant progress towards acceptance in Europe.”

He continued: “Although set prices are falling, they remain relatively high and that means uptake over the next couple of years will be steady rather than spectacular.”

The Informa study showed that out of the 28.6 million HD households forecast for the end of 2005, just 9.8 million have the necessary settop box to enable content to be viewed. This means that only a third of homes with a HDTV set are receiving HD content.

However, by 2010 Informa expects HD programming to be much more readily available, and more than 75% of homes to be receiving content.

Adam Thomas, media research manager for Informa commented: “By 2010 the HDTV sector will have evolved from a few early adopter countries, to a thriving global market, where all players along the value chain have recognised the benefits of HDTV, and are investing accordingly.”

He added: “With consumer demand growing, greater content availability and the price of high definition sets falling, HDTV is on track to becoming a mass market reality.”

Programme makers are already looking towards HDTV with Jill Offman, senior vice president and channel director of Discovery UK, revealing at the Edinburgh International TV Festival that most of the new shows being filmed for the channel were being made in HDTV.

Offman asserted that, in order to keep up with rival broadcasters, programme makers must look towards HDTV, saying: “Anyone who has any kind of forward thinking will want HD.”

The cost of producing programmes in HD has previously put the television industry off the format, but Offman claimed that HD “doesn’t have to be more expensive if you work hard.”

Informa Telecoms & Media’s predictions are more optimistic than those of market research firm, In-Stat, which forecasts HDTV to reach 15.5 million households world-wide by the end of 2005, with penetration forecast to hit 52 million by 2009 (see Global HDTV Penetration To Reach 52 Million By 2009).