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Like Teri's Veins, HDTV Sales Pop

Posted on: Monday, 17 October 2005, 15:00 CDT

By Jessie Seyfer, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Oct. 17--Poor Teri Hatcher. The "Desperate Housewives" star's veins are popping out, and there's nothing she can do about it, at least when her show plays on a high-definition TV set.

Hatcher figures prominently in TV industry analyst Phillip Swann's second annual Best and Worst HDTV list, released this month. The list rates which stars look even better on HDTV sets, which display in extremely high detail, and which stars look much, much worse.

But the list tells us more than which celebrities look good up close: It's a sign that HDTV is catching on with America's mainstream.

About 11 percent of North American households owned a high-definition set in 2004, according to In-Stat market research, and that number was expected to grow to 16 percent this year. More than 25 percent of U.S. households will have HD televisions by the end of 2006, a September report from JupiterResearch found.

This growth is spurred by falling HDTV set prices and the expected transition of all TV shows being broadcast by a conventional analog signal to a digital signal by 2009, JupiterResearch concluded.

Even if HDTV's prices are falling, they're still steep for some U.S. households. HDTV sets range from about $1,000 to several thousand dollars.

Although prices on sets have fallen and that's expected to continue, consumers often don't feel the savings because they frequently upgrade to a more expensive set with a bigger screen, said In-Stat analyst Michelle Abraham.

"If you were to look at a 27-inch . . . TV last year vs. this year, that particular set has come down in price," she said. "But people usually buy larger."

People also tend to upgrade to flat-panel TVs, which also adds to the price tag, she said.

These features augment the kind of visual experience possible from an HDTV set. And they give TV watchers a brutally honest look at celebrities, so they can see, as Swann's list notes, that Hatcher's forehead "is covered with bulging veins."

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Copyright (c) 2005, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

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Source: San Jose Mercury News

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