Australians have been paying an average of more than $1100 for new TV sets as they race to move to digital tellies ahead of next year’s analog switch-off, according to a report by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.Australia now has about 18.7 million working television sets in private dwellings – an average of 2.2 per household, according to ACMA’s Television Sets In Australian Households 2011 report
About 29 percent of households purchased a new television set in the 12 months before the study, and 70 percent had bought a new set in the previous three years.
By mid-2011, more than 80 percent of main TV sets in Australian households had been converted to digital, the report found. Apart from the need to go digital, the main reasons given for buying a new set were to get a television set with a flat or bigger screen (69 percent) or to get a better quality picture (66 percent).
The average price of an LCD television set fell by $256 (32 percent) between 2010 and 2011, and the average price of a plasma television set fell by $174, or 14 percent. Those surveyed reported the average price for a new TV bought in the year to June 2011 was $1131.
