Survey: Bad economy good for TV viewing

A national survey commissioned by Verizon found 57% of US adults will cope with tough economic times by staying home and watching more television, and some of those TV watchers will buy high-definition TV sets this year to improve that viewing.

The survey of 1026 adults conducted for Verizon also showed features such as additional HD channels, clearer sound and interactive services such as viewing Internet videos on the TV were of more interest to viewers (49% of women, 60% of men) than better picture quality (42% of women, 34% of men). The most desired service (27%) was an HD digital video recorder.

In releasing the survey results, Verizon touted the ability of its FiOS TV service to deliver more channels, offer multi-room DVR capabilities and offer more HD content.

The survey didn’t address other options for watching TV at home, including recently announced services from Blockbuster and NetFlix to deliver movies via broadband to the TV set.

“We are happy if they use their broadband connection as well,” said Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe. “NetFlix and Blockbuster will benefit from this same phenomenon, although we didn’t ask about other services in the survey. Clearly what we did look at was that people were thinking about entertainment at home as opposed to going out of the home.”