NEW YORK - Television stations across the United States planned to cut their analog signals Friday, ending a six-decade era for the technology and likely stranding more than 1 million unprepared homes without TV service.
Stations will make the switch at different hours. The Federal Communications Commission put 4,000 operators on standby for calls from confused viewers, and set up demonstration centers in several cities. Volunteer groups and local government agencies were helping elderly viewers set up digital converter boxes that keep older TVs functioning.
A survey sponsored by broadcasters showed that Americans are well aware of the analog shutdown, thanks to a yearlong barrage of TV ads. But not everyone was sure exactly what it means, or what needs to be done to tune in to digital TV.
Any sets hooked up to cable or satellite feeds are unaffected. Newer, digital TVs that get broadcasts through antennas — and older sets hooked up to converter boxes — should be fine, but they will need to be set to "re-scan" the airwaves, to find stations that move to new frequencies Friday.
The shutdown of analog channels frees up the airwaves for modern applications like wireless broadband and TV services for cell phones. It was originally scheduled for Feb. 17, but the government's fund for $40 converter box coupons ran out of money in early January, prompting the incoming Obama administration to push for a delay. The converter box program got additional funding in the national stimulus package.
Many households still unprepared
Research firm SmithGeiger LLC said Thursday that about 2.2 million households were still unprepared as of last week. Sponsored by the National Association of Broadcasters, it surveyed 948 households that relied on antennas and found that 1 in 8 had not connected a digital TV or digital converter box.
Nielsen Co., which measures TV ratings with the help of a wide panel of households, put the number of unready homes at 2.8 million, or 2.5 percent of the total television market, as of Sunday. In February, the number was 5.8 million.
Nearly half of the United States' 1,760 full-power TV stations have already cut their analog signals, though they are mostly in less populated areas.
Even after Friday, low-power analog stations and rural relay stations known as "translators" will still be available in some areas. And about 100 full-power stations will keep an analog "night light" on for a few weeks, informing viewers of the need to switch to digital reception.
Well, this is the first I've heard of it. No, that's a horrible lie. I'm actually watching my local ABC affiliate for the noon transition. We have cable in the house and I expect perfect performance.
It was pissing me off back in February when the original switch was supposed to be taking place and apparently there were people who were still unaware of the need to do something to keep their TV receiving signals.
I hardly ever watch television but for the previous two years it has been pretty difficult not to see public service announcements about the switchover, and that's just on TV alone.
If it's just about people procrastinating about getting a digital tuner or applying for the coupon from the government well TFS!
I am curious to see if there's any difference in my reception today. I can't actually remember the last time I turned on my TV for something other than a DVD.
By the pricking of my thumb,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks.
Research firm SmithGeiger LLC said Thursday that about 2.2 million households were still unprepared as of last week. Sponsored by the National Association of Broadcasters, it surveyed 948 households that relied on antennas and found that 1 in 8 had not connected a digital TV or digital converter box.
I wonder what the sample error on that is like. That seems like an awful lot of people using outdated TVs.
"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
Research firm SmithGeiger LLC said Thursday that about 2.2 million households were still unprepared as of last week. Sponsored by the National Association of Broadcasters, it surveyed 948 households that relied on antennas and found that 1 in 8 had not connected a digital TV or digital converter box.
I wonder what the sample error on that is like. That seems like an awful lot of people using outdated TVs.
Old Age Codgers are remarkably ill-informed on these things, sometimes . Over here they had Age Concern running a campaign where they hunted down every pensioner in a 50 mile radius and threw digital boxes at them and checked to see if they were installed. There were some teething issues, as one can expect, but it seems to be going fairly smoothly now.
EBC: Northeners, Huh! What are they good for?! Absolutely nothing!
Cybertron, Justice league...MM, HAB SDN City Watch: Sergeant Detritus
Days Unstabbed, Unabused, Unassualted and Unwavedatwithabutchersknife: 0
Research firm SmithGeiger LLC said Thursday that about 2.2 million households were still unprepared as of last week. Sponsored by the National Association of Broadcasters, it surveyed 948 households that relied on antennas and found that 1 in 8 had not connected a digital TV or digital converter box.
I wonder what the sample error on that is like. That seems like an awful lot of people using outdated TVs.
Up until last week I was running a 1988 27 inch Sony with a converter box.
I finally replaced it with a Samsung LN40B550 while I was on vacation.
Anyone want a Dish Network TR-40 converter box?
You can have it for the $12 ($52-$40 coupon) I have in it plus shipping.
As far as our local stations go, 2 shut down their analog signal at midnight, 2 are running normal programming on analog as of this moment, and one is running constant spots (on their analog channel, the digital is normal programming) in English and Spanish on how to hook up a converter box.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
We were ready with a converter back in February for the original date. Although we've had some reception problems lately they seem to have resolved with better weather.
Throughout the day channels have been changing over, but we'll wait to do the re-scan for the box until tomorrow morning, probably, so we only have to do it once.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
Broomstick wrote:We were ready with a converter back in February for the original date. Although we've had some reception problems lately they seem to have resolved with better weather.
Throughout the day channels have been changing over, but we'll wait to do the re-scan for the box until tomorrow morning, probably, so we only have to do it once.
Broomstick, do you have any additional Digital OTA channels that you didn't have before?
My parents in southwest CT went from 2x ABC, 2xCBS, 2xNBC, 2xFOX, 4xPBS, and some independents to just the local ABC affiliate and 1 PBS station. They are less than thrilled about this "superior" technology. I'm probably going to end up rewiring the antenna and house/rescanning the boxes to see if I can get any of the other channels on Sunday.
Meh, I have cable and even a year ago when I didn't, I had a digital antenea and a more or less current TV that could read a digital signal. The hundred dollar flat screen special at Wal mart is digital ready for crying out loud.
Er...was going to add. Even if there were that many grandma's in the nation without a 'new' tv to read the digital signal, is there really that many bad sons and grandsons that go with them?
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
Broomstick wrote:We were ready with a converter back in February for the original date. Although we've had some reception problems lately they seem to have resolved with better weather.
Throughout the day channels have been changing over, but we'll wait to do the re-scan for the box until tomorrow morning, probably, so we only have to do it once.
Broomstick, do you have any additional Digital OTA channels that you didn't have before?
Well, when we first set up the box we got "extra" channels, not sure about today. We anticipate a few more, but until the transition is complete and we update everything we won't know for sure.
Last count (around 5 pm) we had 38 channels.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
Knife wrote:Meh, I have cable and even a year ago when I didn't, I had a digital antenea and a more or less current TV that could read a digital signal. The hundred dollar flat screen special at Wal mart is digital ready for crying out loud.
Er...was going to add. Even if there were that many grandma's in the nation without a 'new' tv to read the digital signal, is there really that many bad sons and grandsons that go with them?
There are people who can't afford to get a new TV, even the $100 WallyWorld special. Not all of those got their coupons promptly.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
The Fox and ABC stations went to analog snow a minute or two before midnight without any warning.
The local CBS station is still broadcasting their 'how to use a converter box' programming on their old analog channel.
I guess they're one of the stations permitted to broadcast a 'night light' signal.
I have HD cable now, but I still have an antenna hooked up so I can get the nearby KET* public TV channel in HD that isn't carried by Insight.
*Kentucky Educational Television - the PBS network for Kentucky.
KET oftentimes broadcasts programming that isn't immediately available on Evansville, Indiana's PBS station.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
Final channel count: 39. 'Cause someone asked upthread.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
'Twas me. So, how many channels did you have before digital? It's interesting that you have 39 while darkjedi521 spoke of his parents having about 12 before and 2 after.
No one I know is getting TV OTA anymore, not for years now, so to get a feel of what the change is producing, I have been following this a bit on radio and elsewhere online.
I was listening to 87.7 FM here (which used to broadcast the local ABC affiliate's audio) and right at 12:15 on Friday it turned to static. That's the closest I saw (well, heard) firsthand of the switchover.
'Twas me. So, how many channels did you have before digital? It's interesting that you have 39 while darkjedi521 spoke of his parents having about 12 before and 2 after.
pre-switchover analog we had 9
pre-switchover digital we had about 32 or 33
However, quite a few of the additional channels are of limited utility. About 4 or 5 are of actual interest.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
Much-delayed end of TV transition is relief for some businesses, end of windfall for others
By PETER SVENSSON
AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- It's not just TV viewers who will be relieved when analog broadcast signals are shut down Friday, sparing them from incessant reminders about converter boxes. Some business are eagerly awaiting the end of a process that began in 1987, when the shift to digital broadcasts was proposed.
"We're really excited that this is finally behind us," said Bill Stone, president of Qualcomm Inc.'s FLO TV service.
FLO TV, which broadcasts digital TV to specially equipped cell phones, spent $558 million one year ago for the rights to use UHF Channel 56 around the country. Qualcomm counted on being able to use that frequency right after Feb. 17, when U.S. full-power TV stations were originally slated to end their analog broadcasts.
The delay of the analog shutdown to Friday forced Qualcomm to postpone the launch of FLO TV service in new markets, costing the company tens of millions of dollars, Stone said.
Qualcomm will activate FLO TV service in 15 markets this weekend, including Boston, Houston, Miami and San Francisco. More markets will launch later this year, bringing FLO closer to its goal of nationwide coverage.
Cellular carriers Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc. paid a combined $16 billion for spectrum to be vacated by TV broadcasters, but the delay has had little effect on them, since the wireless broadband equipment they plan to deploy is still in development. Verizon Wireless plans to turn it on next year.
The analog shutdown also helps TV broadcasters, which have suffered greatly because of declining advertising rates in the economic downturn. Several are in bankruptcy protection. After Friday, broadcasters will be freed from having to maintain expensive analog antennas. The vast majority of them are already broadcasting digitally, so there is no new cost coming for replacement broadcasts.
Best Buy Co.'s chief executive, Brad Anderson, said last year he was "very nervous" about being able to get and distribute adequate stocks of digital TV converter boxes ahead of the shutdown.
"I think it's one of the biggest risks our industry has," he said.
But manufacturers and electronics retailers have met the challenge of supplying converter boxes, which generally cost $40 to $60. And sales of digital TVs - which don't need the converters - have been strong even as other consumer spending has declined.
Other businesses have also gotten a one-time bonanza out of the transition.
A St. Louis-based manufacturer of TV antennas, Antennas Direct, said sales for the first quarter of the year more than tripled from the same period last year, to $2 million.
The cable industry has tried to sign up new customers who would rather not deal with the challenge of getting set up to receive digital TV broadcasts.
Joel Kelsey, policy analyst at Consumers Union, testified before the Federal Communications Commission last week that cable TV operators have run ads that say viewers have to act to not lose TV service, without mentioning that consumers can buy a converter box for which a $40 government coupon is available.
The ads "take advantage of the confusion around the digital transition," Kelsey told The Associated Press. Moreover, when consumers have called cable companies to sign up for a low-cost plan that was advertised, they have been pressured to buy more expensive services, Kelsey said.
While some customers might not have had a good experience when they called to sign up for service, National Cable and Telecommunications Association spokesman Brian Dietz said, cable has "gone beyond the call of duty" to educate consumers. The association said cable companies have spent $250 million on ad campaigns that promoted only the digital TV converter boxes and coupons.
Cable companies have said the transition netted them some new customers in the first quarter, but it wasn't a mass migration. Time Warner Cable Inc. told investors Thursday that it had a spike of new customers in February, around the time of the original deadline, and call center activity has picked up this week as well, as the last procrastinators start dealing with the transition.
The beneficiary of the greatest windfall from the transition is undoubtedly the U.S. government. It has pocketed $19.6 billion from the auction of freed-up airwaves.
---
AP Business Writer Deborah Yao in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
Tsyroc wrote:It appears that during the switchover we lost the local biblethumper stations.
I have a bunch more Spanish language channels but I'll take that over the preachy channels any day.
I pick up a station in ATSC that I couldn't under the old NTSC analog system.
Namely Madisonville, KY's KET public TV station.
I couldn't pick up its analog signal at all, but careful adjustment of my Ratshack 'UFO' antenna lets me dial in the ATSC transmission clear as a bell.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
People were joking about PBS being the main thing going after the switch over.
Well, I get 3 different versions of PBS programing on 6 different channels. The local station has always been on channel 6 with a repeater on 27. Now it's 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 and 27.1, 27.2, 27.3. The third one of both of those is primarily in Spanish.
Not really an issue for me since when I actually watch broadcast TV I'm most likely going to be watching PBS anyway. Except during football season.
By the pricking of my thumb,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks.
I get fewer channels on digital TV than I did on analog. At least the analog signals were subjectively usable at craptastic SNRs. With digital TV, I have to put the antenna on the floor and sacrifice virgins in order to get some channels to come in. Then sacrifice chickens and move the antenna elsewhere to get some other channels to come in. I suspect the only way I'll get a more consistent signal is to stick what'll essentially be a lightning rod on my roof.
I'm this close to getting cable, since they've just recently brought it to my area.
above link wrote:
The beneficiary of the greatest windfall from the transition is undoubtedly the U.S. government. It has pocketed $19.6 billion from the auction of freed-up airwaves.
My question is, how much did the rebates for converter boxes cost the US govt.? Seems that that 19.6 B$ figure doesn't take that into account.
Are you accusing me of not having a viable magnetic field? - Masaq' Hub, Look to Windward
Memnon wrote:My question is, how much did the rebates for converter boxes cost the US govt.? Seems that that 19.6 B$ figure doesn't take that into account.
Memnon wrote:My question is, how much did the rebates for converter boxes cost the US govt.? Seems that that 19.6 B$ figure doesn't take that into account.
About $2.15b or so.
Thanks. Too bad that doesn't cover much stimulus package though :3
I found a source for that article's figures, and it looks like the telecoms won handily.
Just looking at Verizon, apparently they use the 800/1900 MHz bands generally.
So this adds a large chunk of spectrum for their... voice services?
(EVDO is in the 1900 MHz ish band)
Are you accusing me of not having a viable magnetic field? - Masaq' Hub, Look to Windward
