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Kansas City News Today Kansas City Front Page is a weekly news publication, with daily updates, spotlighting attractions, events, business and hospitality in Kansas City. |
KANSAS CITY NEWS TODAY - Sunday, February 17, 2008 13 Million U.S. Households Not Yet Ready for Digital Television Conversion KANSAS CITY, MO, (PRNewswire-USNewswire), February 17, 2008 - More than 13 million households with television sets that can only receive analog broadcasts are currently unprepared for the transition to all digital broadcasting that is scheduled for February 18, 2009, according to the Nielsen Company. Another 6 million households have at least one television set that would no longer work after that date. "The change to all-digital broadcasting is the most significant change in the history of television, because unlike other advances such as color, older television sets will no longer be able to receive television signals without a converter," explained Eric Rossi, Senior Manager, Product Leadership and leader of Nielsen's digital transition preparedness team. "Over the past 18 months we have been reviewing every aspect of the digital transition to measure the impact and help clients understand where things stand as we all prepare for the challenges." Nielsen found that adults over 55 are better prepared than younger households; and Whites and Asians are more ready than Blacks (see Table 1 below). More Hispanic households still rely on analog, over-the-air broadcast television than non-Hispanics. These estimates are based on the same national and local television ratings samples that are used to generate Nielsen television ratings. These samples are representative of the total U.S. population and individual local markets. Among the key findings reported:
KANSAS CITY, (kansascityfrontpage.com), February 17, 2008 - Kristen Allcorn, 18, of Sedalia and Nicholas Mozer, 13, of Blue Springs were named Missouri's top two youth volunteers for 2008 by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, a nationwide program honoring young people for outstanding acts of volunteerism. The awards program, now in its 13th year, is conducted by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP). Kristen was nominated by Smith-Cotton High School in Sedalia, and Nicholas was nominated by Moreland Ridge Middle School in Blue Springs. As State Honorees, each will receive $1,000, an engraved silver medallion, and an all-expense-paid trip in early May to Washington, D.C., where they will join the top two honorees - one middle level and one high school youth - from each of the other states and the District of Columbia for several days of national recognition events. Ten of them will be named America's top youth volunteers for 2008 at that time. Kristen, a senior at Smith-Cotton High School, founded the Community Café, a table-service soup kitchen that has served close to 9,000 meals to needy residents since December 2006. While volunteering several times at a soup kitchen in Kansas City, "I fell in love with the idea of helping others through serving food," said Kristen. "It is such a practical way to meet the tangible needs of people." She began looking for similar volunteer opportunities closer to home, but couldn't find any program that offered a free hot meal to the needy on a consistent basis. So she decided to start her own. Nicholas, an eighth-grader at Moreland Ridge Middle School, helped his family raise more than $175,000 for pediatric cancer research over the past four years by operating lemonade stands throughout the Kansas City area. Nicholas' brother, Jacob, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma as a baby. "Fortunately, he survived, but many other kids don't," said Nicholas. "I want them to have the same opportunity to live as he did." Metro Areas Show Greatly Mixed Home Price Performance KANSAS CITY, (kansascityfrontpage.com), February 17, 2008 - Roughly half of metropolitan areas continued to show rising home prices in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the latest quarterly survey by the National Association of Realtors(R). Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said disruptions in the mortgage market have played a role. "The continuing crunch in the jumbo loan market that began in August has disproportionately reduced the number of transactions in higher price ranges," he said. "For buyers who need loans of more than $417,000, mortgage interest rates have been running more than a percentage point higher, and that has been having an obvious impact. Higher ratios of sales for more moderately priced homes are naturally dampening the national median price as well as the data for some of the more expensive markets." The disruption in higher priced sales continues to drag down the aggregate national median existing single-family home price, which was $206,200 in the fourth quarter, down 5.8 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006 when the median price was $219,000. The national median normally is a typical market price, where half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less. Despite the annual decline in the fourth quarter median home price, the typical seller who purchased their home six years ago still saw a very healthy gain. The median increase in value for sellers who purchased that home in the fourth quarter of 2001 is 31.2 percent, and the median home equity accumulation is $49,000. "The healthiest housing markets today generally are moderately priced and are experiencing job growth and often population growth, which in turn is supporting strong price growth," Yun said. "Most of the weakest markets have either experienced both job and population losses, or they are experiencing corrections following a prolonged period of rapid price growth." In the condo sector, metro area condominium and cooperative prices -- covering changes in 59 metro areas -- show the national median existing-condo price was $221,100 in the fourth quarter, essentially unchanged from $221,200 in the fourth quarter of 2006. Thirty-three metros showed annual increases in the median condo price, including four areas with double-digit gains; 26 areas had price declines including four with double-digit drops. Metro area median existing-condo prices in the fourth quarter ranged from $109,900 in Wichita, Kan., to $595,700 in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont area. The second most expensive condo market reported was Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, at $363,100, followed by the San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos area at $327,000. Regionally, the median existing single-family home price in the Midwest declined 3.2 percent to $156,300 in the fourth quarter from the same period in 2006. The strongest metro price increase in the Midwest was in the Springfield, Ill., area, where the median price of $108,600 was 14.4 percent higher than a year ago. Next was Bismarck, N.D., at $144,700, up 13.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006, and Waterloo-Cedar Falls, Iowa, at $115,400, up 12.1 percent.   The Kansas City Front Page is owned and maintained by the Moore Design Group for the sole purpose of disseminating news and information about the Metropolitan Kansas City area. Text or graphics may not be copied, rewritten or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission. For more information, contact editor@slfp.com All rights reserved world wide © 2007 - 2008 Moore Design Group. |
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