High-Definition TV Services: Coming to a Home Near You?

Abstract

High-definition television has captured the imagination of a small, but growing, audience of TV viewers who rave about the service痴 extraordinary clear and crisp picture quality. With its life-like detail and impressive audio performance, HDTV service is also exciting TV broadcasters and multichannel service providers. The service, which is still only available in a few select countries, has the potential to boost incremental monthly revenues for both cable and satellite operators, as well as provide terrestrial TV broadcasters with a new weapon in the fight against pay-TV services.

This report examines the availability of high-definition television services around the world. It covers market and industry drivers for HDTV service subscribers and viewers, and discusses how the availability of HD programming and the development of different HD business models are impacting the market for high-definition services.

The report also takes an in-depth look at existing HDTV service providers, and identifies the 吐ast movers・in the satellite, cable, and terrestrial broadcast industries. The report provides five-year forecasts for worldwide HDTV households by transmission platform (satellite, cable, and terrestrial), worldwide HDTV households by geographic region, US HDTV households, and the installed base of US HDTV sets.