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The number of 90% seems unlikely unless Nielsen is counting people with personal satellite dishes. At this point the National Cable Television Association claims that they can reach 127.5 million homes in the Unites States, but are actually providing service to 48.5% of them. The US Census has stated that there are a total of 128.2 million housing units (homes) in the country. That would mean that cable companies are providing service to 61.8 million homes.

The only two remaining full-service satellite companies in the US that I can find are Dish Network and Direct TV. Combined they have 32.3 million subscribers - not all of whom would necessarily be home subscribers from what I can tell. However, if we conservatively accepted that all of them were home subscribers, that would mean that 94.1 million American homes have either satellite or cable (73%). If we then take Verizon FiOS and AT&T's U-verse into account and count them as something like cable providers, we'd have 98 million homes in the US receiving video content from a subscription service of some kind, or 76.44%.

This would mean that roughly 24% of American homes receive video content off-the-air, via personal satellite, or don't receive any regular video content at all. Confusing the matter *might* be that 13.6% of American homes are either unoccupied or are vacation/part time properties. I found no data on how many of these part time homes subscribe to cable, satellite or something like FiOS.

If you assume that only the 110.6 million homes that are occupied full-time are counted by Nielsen, then you arrive at 88.6% of American homes have cable, satellite or FioS/U-verse. That's still not quite 90%, and it assumes that people who have a subscription service in their primary residence would not in their secondary one. That seems unlikely somehow. It also assumes that all other subscription television services provide service only to homes, again something that seems unlikely.

Finally, further confusing the matter would be a 2006 report by the FCC which states that 14% of American homes receive television off the air. I have no idea where they got that number from, and I'm willing to believe it's either just wrong or a typo.

Original Answer:

"I found an article from December 2008 quoting the Television Bureau of Advertising, who found from analysis of Nielsen data that about 90 % of TV households have either cable or satellite.

See the 'Related Links' below to go to the article."

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Q: What percent of American households have cable or satellite tv I ask because it strikes me as odd that all the debates are only on cable.?
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