80% of TV viewing in U.S. is still in standard definition
Don’t totally fall out of your seat here, as the Nielsen survey does take into account all TVs into this. Out of those users with an HDTV set, the number dips to 20% which is about what I’d expect. There’s still some channels and cable companies that haven’t migrated–we have a poor forum user who had to bare through The Walking Dead on AMC in standard def…yuck!
In fact, fully 80 percent of TV watched in the U.S. is still viewed in plain old standard definition, even though 56 percent of U.S. households have at least one HDTV set, according to the Nielsen Co.—and even though more and more network and cable TV programming has made the jump to high-def.