(nyt) NEARLY 25 million homes have at least one television set that will stop functioning in nine months, when the nation converts to digital over-the-air television. Ten million of those homes are considered “completely unready” for the conversion, according to a report scheduled to be released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research. Among the findings, Hispanic and African-American households stand to lose a disproportionately high share of access, and extra televisions in kitchens and bedrooms will be more likely to go dark, potentially cutting into the number of people viewing early morning and late-night television. The survey is one of the first in-depth assessments of the nation’s readiness for the digital TV transition. In preparation for the change, the government and the broadcast industry are running a billion consumer education campaign, including commercials that have started to become almost intrusive to people who watch television regularly. “Most households are ready today, but there are a real percentage of homes that are not,” said Sara Erichson, an executive vice president at Nielsen, which found that about three-quarters of households are prepared. Broadcast television stations will switch to a digital signal from an analog signal on Feb. 17, 2009. Televisions connected to cable or satellite service will not be affected. But older television sets that receive over-the-air signals will need to be hooked up to a converter box to ensure uninterrupted service. (Some newer sets are equipped for digital signals.) Affected consumers will bear at least some additional cost and will have to make a decision whether to buy a box or a more expensive set, almost certainly factors in their delayed response to the educational campaign. The digital TV transition could have a significant impact on the television ratings maintained by Nielsen and relied on by networks and advertisers. If older TV sets simply drop out next February, viewer numbers and ratings will drop, hurting the local stations and television networks that sell advertising time tied to those ratings. Using its ratings panel, Nielsen found that 9.4 percent of households, or roughly 10 million homes, were “completely unready” for the switch as of April 30, meaning that all their television sets would go dark next year. An additional 12.6 percent of households were partly unready. Within some demographic groups, disparities were evident. Hispanic, exclusively Spanish-speaking, African-American and younger households showed higher percentages of unready sets.

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