• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, January 3, 2006

Nearly half of all cable TV subscribers are now digital, according to results of a poll of consumer technology released by the AP and market researcher Ipsos on the eve of the consumer electronics industry's annual CES show in Las Vegas. The findings, which were corroborated by the National Association of Broadcasters, also found that only 22 percent of U.S. households now receive TV via over-the-air broadcasting.

According to the results, 51 percent of Americans get TV via cable, while 26 percent get it from satellite services. The findings are significant, because they indicate that analog services are now the minority of the TV marketplace. Both digital cable and satellite TV services enable consumers to receive digital tier networks and to receive enhanced TV programming features such as video-on-demand and digital video recorders (DVR).

The figures are in line with the findings of NAB, the Government Accountability Office and Consumers Union, said NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton, adding, "It is also considerably higher than the grossly inaccurate figures supplied by the Consumer Electronics Association."

The poll, which was based on interviews with more than 1,000 adults between Dec. 13 and Dec. 15, 2005, also found that 25 percent of respondents had a DVR in their homes, a much higher level of penetration than indicated by other sources, including Nielsen Media Research, which last week began reporting TV viewing data for DVR households for the first time.

Nearly three quarters (72 percent) of the respondents said they personally use DVRs in their homes, and 52 percent said they considered it a device they would either "miss" or could not "imagine living without."

The most indispensable household media technologies were the personal computer, which only 26 percent said they could live without, followed by high-speed Internet access (31 percent) and cell phones (34 percent).