San Francisco DMA Leads in Broadband, Digital Cable & DVD Penetration; Philly & Boston in Cable; St. Louis in DBS; Detroit in Video Games & Indianapolis Leads Top 25 DMA`s in VCR Penetration
BizWire (04/28/2003 6:17 PM ET)

    Entertainment Editors/Business Editors

    LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 28, 2003--

    Where are people adopting new media technologies, such as Digital Cable and DVD, the fastest? How is the DBS vs Cable war faring in different markets? Which markets have grown the most in various sectors since our last report? Does market size correlate to Internet use? Are certain media activities actually declining or being cannibalized by other activities in key markets? Which activities? Which markets? These and other issues are addressed in "2002 DMA & Regional Communications, Entertainment & Technology Profiles" published today by CENTRIS(sm).

    CENTRIS has been reporting detailed national data consistently for nearly six years. But national numbers tend to smooth out regional variances that are critically important to understanding the dynamics of adoption rates for new technologies and entertainment products. "Furthermore, each local market has its own identity and preferences, which providers of these products and services must acknowledge in order to be successful in their marketing efforts," according to Jerilyn Kessel, cofounder of CENTRIS. This second wave of DMA profiles clearly points to some of these differences.

    Key Study Findings:

--	The San Francisco market wins the title "most digital" in that it leads the top 25 DMAs for DVD consoles, PCs, DVD-ROM, Digital Cable, PDAs, Broadband and cell phones.
--	Consumers like things big in Texas, with Large Screen TV's having the highest penetration in Houston with Dallas/Ft Worth not far behind.
--	Digital Cable penetration more than doubled in 9 markets, with the largest growth in Boston and Minneapolis.
--	PC growth in two Florida DMAs, Tampa and Orlando, was notably faster than the national rate, but each started from a lower penetration.
--	VHS rental and purchase activity have declined in 11 of the 25 top DMAs. The most active VHS markets are Chicago for rental and Houston for purchase - by contrast, San Francisco is the leading market for DVD rental and purchase.

    CENTRIS tracks many of the new content delivery technologies and formats, beginning with the initial market introduction. This provides an accumulation of respondents over time that enables the development of meaningful sample sizes of early adopters, while analyzing activity data and profiling ownership characteristics as market penetrations mature. The "2002 DMA & Regional Communications, Entertainment & Technology Profiles" report includes Market specific data for 40 selected ownership, subscription and activity metrics collected by CENTRIS in its daily, ongoing "Access" Omnibus survey. This report is based on one year's data, over 47,000 interviews, ensuring that each of the Top 25 DMAs has a statistically meaningful sample size. This is Wave II of the DMA Profile Study that CENTRIS has published, adding a "growth" dimension to the reported data. In addition to providing the 2002 Profiles and their index to National figures, the growth from WAVE I for each metric is reported as well. For more details visit http://www.centris.com/.

    About CENTRIS

    CENTRIS is a consumer research and information services firm tracking home entertainment and technology, specializing in the digital and broadband world along with cable, satellite, home video, music, motion pictures, the Internet and other telecommunications. CENTRIS' core service is a specialized daily omnibus service that yields 1,000 nationally projectable interviews each week, profiling more than 100 consumer electronics, entertainment, telecommunications and geo-demographic household measures. The 100 Core metrics that accompany proprietary inserts into its "Access" omnibus generate many syndicated analytic and database products. CENTRIS is headquartered in the Philadelphia area with an office in Santa Monica.

--30--RJ/la* CONTACT: CENTRIS Lisa Masciale, 310.264.8777 KEYWORD: TEXAS PENNSYLVANIA MISSOURI MINNESOTA MICHIGAN MASSACHUSETTS INDIANA ILLINOIS GEORGIA FLORIDA CALIFORNIA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS ENTERTAINMENT SOURCE: CENTRIS