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RCA Press Release for June 6, 1983 No. 3

The video disc is proving to be a popular consumer product in the home, with the average player owner using it 8.5 hours a week, an RCA survey showed today.

In addition, the survey revealed that consumer satisfaction with their "CED" players is steadily rising and that nearly all VDP owners watch programs more than once.

Stuart Gray, Division Vice President, Program and Market Research, RCA VideoDiscs, said video disc owners who subscribe to Home Box Office use their players 8.8 hours a week and households with children use it 10.3 hours a week.

Mr. Gray said those who also own a video cassette recorder use their video disc player an average of 7.9 hours a week.

"We also continue to see that cable television has not been a competitive problem to marketing video disc players, since VDP owners are just as likely to subscribe to basic and pay-cable as the general population," he added. He said 79 percent of VDP owners subscribing to cable already had cable when they bought their players.

The survey also showed that VDP owners are nearly four times as likely to have a video cassette recorder than the general population (23% vs. 6%), more than three times as likely to have a home computer (14% vs. 4%), and twice as likely to have a video game (48% vs. 20%).

The findings of the latest survey confirm that there is a strong appetite to view programs more than once. Among those who own "On Golden Pond," for example, 93 percent have watched it more than once and the average number of viewings during the first five months of ownership was 6.3 times. In addition, 35 percent of the respondents who owned the title one year said they watched it more than 15 times.

"We asked the respondents who did not own 'On Golden Pond' about the last disc they watched," Mr. Gray added. "We found that 94 percent had viewed the last disc watched more than once and that the disc had been owned 3.7 months and watched 5.8 times."

Mr. Gray said the latest survey verifies that "there are substantial numbers of people interested in viewing titles numerous times, a key factor in the appeal of building an inexpensive home video library."

Suggested retail prices of "CED" video disc players start at under $300 and video disc albums at $14.98.

Video disc player owners continue to be excellent salesmen. Owners claiming to have influenced others towards buying a player rose to 29 percent from 24 percent in the October survey, with that figure reaching 37 percent for those who have owned their players over two years.

The April 1983 survey covered 1,272 VDP owners.