Thursday, 07 December, 2006
Widescreen TVs and HDTV keeping people at home more
Over half of all Americans are staying home more than they did two years ago to enjoy high-tech entertainment between their own four walls, according to research by Marketing Daily.
Nearly as many say new technology such as widescreen TVs and HDTV has turned TV-watching into a social event.
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, wide-screen TVs - those 40 inches or larger - accounted for 21% of all TVs shipped in the US this year, up from 14% last year. As screens grow in size, the cost is plummeting, making the sets available to more people.
“We’re experiencing a phenomenon of people migrating to larger TVs,” says Sean Wargo, the Consumer Electronics Association’s director of industry analysis. In fact, like many couch potatoes, TV sets have gained an inch a year for the past five years.
TVs used to hide behind huge entertainment consoles, but people are starting to take them out of the closet and hang them prominently above the mantel or on a living room wall. “They’re a status symbol as well as en entertainment vehicle,” says Wargo, which partly explains why people like to frame their social life around widescreen TVs.
The Synovate study found that the young-middle-aged are the most likely group to party in front of the TV. Well over 300 of all respondents said they have HDTV, widescreen or plasma TVs at home, and of this group, 47% said they’re watching TV in a social setting more often because of these new technologies. But that figure shoots up to 67% for respondents ages 35 to 44.
Not surprisingly, younger age groups are less inclined to stay home because of high-tech entertainment systems. No surprise there.
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