Rabbit Ears Perk Up for Free HDTV

0 percent of American households still pay for cable or satellite television — a figure that in recent years has been slowly and steadily rising. But American’s relationship with television has recently been in flux, in part because of the switch last June to digital broadcast signals.

That initially gave pay TV providers a group of new subscribers who had worried that their old sets would not pick up the new signals. But analysts say some of those subscribers have since gone back to free signals.

Another big change is the rise of Internet video, which can ease the pain of losing favorite cable channels.

Bradley Lautenbach, 28, who recently moved to Los Angeles to work at Disney, found enough alternatives to allow him to turn back the technological clock on his TV.

“I’ve always had cable. It’s the thing you do when you move to a new place: call the company and set it up,” he said. Not this time. Instead, he got an antenna and now watches over-the-air news and sports, complemented by episodes of shows like “Entourage” that he buys from iTunes. “I don’t miss cable at all,” he said.

Industrywide figures on antenna sales are hard to come by, so it is difficult to tell how widely they are being adopted. Antennas Direct, a maker of TV antennas in St. Louis, expects to sell 500,000 this year, up from 385,000 in 2009, according to its president, Richard Schneider.

The company’s digital TV antennas, like others on the market, are a far cry from the wire-hanger versions of old. The sleek circles encased in plastic look more like mouse ears than anything belonging to a bunny.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 7, 2010

An article on Monday about a resurgence in the use of television antennas misspelled the surname of a Los Angeles resident who decided against a cable connection in favor of an antenna and some shows purchased through iTunes. He is Bradley Lautenbach, not Lautenback.

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