A company called "Seed Planning" has conducted a survey regarding the state of the Terrestrial Digital Broadcast market, and they have hypothesized that by 2010, more than 37 million people will be using Terrestrial Digital.

Personally, I found a couple problems with the survey -- namely, the fact that their sample size is o­nly 100 people, all of which were "digital broadcast industry related." But hey, I'm sure they know more about conducting a survey than I do.

Seed Planning publicly released the part of results of the "Japanese Digital Broadcast Diffusion Scenario 2004 Edition" (published August 30th) survey o­n December 21st. The report consists of the results of a survey of 100 digital broadcast-related businesspeople, and related to the expansion of devices supporting terrestiral digital, BS digital, and CS digital broadcasts.

According to this, 35% responded that the period in which analog broadcasts will end "will be in 2011," indicating that the number taking the viewpoint that the schedule is showing signs of losing track has expanded since last year's report (28.4%). o­n the other hand, those who responded "will be in 2014 ~ 2016" decreased over last year.

The report stated that by 2010, the number of subscribers of digital broadcasts receiving them directly would be about 22 million, and using a CATV connection, about 15 million -- bringing the total to 37 million. Also, it was estimated that the expansion of digital receivers (not including CATV's digital STB) would reach 36 million by 2010.

More than 70% of the survey respondents chose "high detail/quality," "digitization of CATV," "services for mobility" and "when analog broadcasts end" as the primary factors for the acceleration of terrestrial digital broadcasts' expansion. Also, in the free response section, multiple respondents indicated "the cost of receivers" would be an influence.

On the other hand, regarding the obstruction to the adoption of terrestrial digital, 81% responded that "there are many people that think they're fine with analog broadcasts" as a reason. Many (71%) responded that "the continuation of simultaneous broadcasting" was important, indicating that many industry figures thing the introduction of fascinating contents is also necessary. Also of note was that many respondents indicated a obstruction is also caused by the need to purchase a new receiver.






Inspired by:
http://www.itmedia.co.jp/lifestyle/articles/0412/21/news072.html

Press Release:
http://www.seedplanning.co.jp/press/2004/1221.html