How many U.S. households subscribe to basic cable service but NO OTHER
cable service tiers?  (Basic cable is defined as the cable service
tier containing retransmitted terrestrial broadcast television
programming.)

The National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) has a
statistic for the number of households which receive basic cable TV
service (73,525,150 households as of November 2002).  However, this
does not answer the question because it includes households which
receive basic cable AS WELL AS other service tiers.  It is actually a
statistic for "total cable households", which is not what I want.  To
answer the question, I need to know how many households receive ONLY
basic cable.

As a further clarification, I don't distinguish between receiving
basic cable and some other non-cable service (e.g., basic cable plus
"rabbit ears", basic cable plus direct broadcast satellite, basic
cable plus Internet service are all "basic cable" for my purposes as
long as the household receiving them does not get any other cable TV
service tiers).

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Request for Question Clarification by juggler-ga on 28 Mar 2003 00:57 PST

I believe that I've located the exact statistic that you seek. It's in
a recent article in a well-known, highly regarded national magazine. 
The statistic expresses the percentage of cable households that opt
for a cable package beyond the absolute minimum basic package.
Obviously, this figure also implies the fraction of cable households
that DO select the minimum.

Would this article constitute a sufficient answer?

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Clarification of Question by sds-ga on 28 Mar 2003 11:08 PST

Yes, if you provide a complete citation and, preferably, quote
the sentence which states the answer.

Hello.

As reported in the November 6, 2002 issue of BusinessWeek, 97% of
cable subscribers choose to buy expanded cable programming. Thus, we
can conclude that a mere 3% of cable subscribers are getting the
minimum basic cable package.

Source:
"According to the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn., 97% of
cable subscribers choose to buy expanded cable programming."
Source: BusinessWeek
"Big Cable's Package-Pricing Ploy," November 6, 2002,
Available on Businessweek.com:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2002/tc2002116_0167.htm

search strategy: "of cable subscribers", basic service, premium,
packages

I hope this helps.

This seems to be directly responsive to my question.  Thank you.

Interestingly, this means there are still over 2,000,000 U.S. basic
cable households.

(I have updated my billing information so that the payment could be
processed.)