New Technology TV

Conventional wisdom has long held that trends often begin on the continent and then head West, landing on the American coasts and then migrating toward the hinterlands. Well, with Hi-Def or HDTV (High Definition Television) the roles are nearly reversed! Kansas or Nebraska or North Carolina is leading the way as consumers in this country are discovering the joys of Hi-Def at a much faster rate than their European counterparts. For the last two years, the Europeans have been expected by analysts to begin adopting HDTV, but astoundingly, less than one million households in Europe currently receive a HDTV signal! Compare that to the United States where over nineteen million homes are receiving the amazingly clear and life-like HD signals! Japan, the island of 127 million of people, has over eleven million HD households.

Almost unbelievably, Britain didn’t get any HD programming until this summer! And Germany only got their first Hi-Definition programming in 2005. The summer Olympics was initially projected to be the watershed event, that signaled the widespread adoption of the new technological advances in television, but 2004 came and left with virtually no HDTV available in Europe. After that, the World Cup, the greatest event in the world of sport for many Europeans, was supposed to be the time of implementation of HD, but still there wasn’t much improvement. Now, pundits and television industry analysts are looking to this Christmas as the time that HD will really gain purchase on the continent. Certainly, the makers of much of the HDTV equipment, Sony, Sharp, Philips, Samsung and others, can’t wait for sales of their new equipment to begin taking off. The Korean based Samsung spent nearly 8 million dollars across Europe during the World Cup, promoting some of their televisions. Unlike America, Europe has marketing problems given that there are so many different languages spoken from Portugal to Poland. Experts are predicting that it will be around five years before there are more than 60 HD channels of programming available throughout the continent. Of the relatively small numbers of Europeans, actually buying new equipment, many are deciding to future proof their purchases by getting digital, HD ready sets. In the next four years, one-third of all Europeans will have an HD Television. Japan, by that time, will have over two-thirds of their population owning the new, cutting-edge televisions. While the BBC is ahead of the rest of Europe in adopting HD, it is expected that it may take another six years before all of their programs are produced using HD! There is a kind of synergy between HD programming and the purchase of new HD sets. One feeds the other, and it looks as if Europe has some serious catch-up to do, to even make progress on the rest of the world, like America and Japan.