世論 What Japan Thinks

With the switch-over to digital TV about to complete at the end of this month when the disaster-struck prefectures join the rest of the country in turning off analogue terrestrial broadcasts, this seems like a good time to look with goo Research at how people are using terrestrial digital television, in their third regular report into this topic, as featured on japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Over the 27th and 28th of February 2012 1,087 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.6% in their forties, and 27.9% aged fifty or older.

I like the instant weather forecasts, especially as my television knows where I live, so I always get the exact weather for the town, with the default being an 18 to 24 hour forecast, with the weather and temperatures predicted in three hour intervals. My wife heavily uses the EPG programming, but that was available for our old analogue television too. She also once took part in a quiz broadcast along with a program, but I didn’t have the heart (or the stamina!) to explain that because we’ve not got the TV plugged into the internet, nothing was actually being recorded.

Research results

First of all, just 0.8% of the sample (eight or nine people) were not aware that analogue had finished (on the 24th of July 2011) and everything had moved over to digital. The report also noted that from the next regular survey in the series they will drop that question. Next, the 97.1% who could receive digital terrestrial broadcasts were asked the following:

Q1: What functions of digital terrestrial television do you use? (Sample size=1,055, multiple answer)

Data broadcast feature to watch the news or weather forecast any time	60.3%
EPG (Electronic Program Guide) to easily record programs	42.9%
Two-way broadcast function to take part in quizzes, voting, etc	23.4%
Subtitle, explanatory text data function	18.1%
Multiple channel functions	9.5%
Other	0.8%
Don’t use any features	21.9%