The digital television transition in Wilmington, N.C. was widely hailed as a success -- public awareness of the DTV switch was high, thousands of people bought converter boxes with government coupons, and a relatively small number of people called in with problems during the first day after the switch took place.
"We only found one person, out of everyone who called, who wasn't aware that there was going to be a transition to digital television," said Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo, in a phone interview with Wired.com last week.
There was good reason for the transition to go smoothly -- the city was inundated with FCC staffers, who went to fairs, retirement homes and electronics stores to get the word out; there were tons of volunteers; and there was tremendous support from within the community.
But for a handful of people -- whose opinion matters -- the test didn't instill much confidence in the current game plan, under which all analog broadcast television will be shut off on Feb. 17, 2009.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps reportedly called on the FCC late last week to figure out a way for broadcasters to extend analog broadcasts after the cutoff, according to a Broadcasting & Cable report. (Copps is out of the country and wasn't available to return our call.)
This came a couple days after Copps submitted a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin suggesting that the hard deadline of Feb. 17 was a little severe.
"The February 17, 2009 deadline is a hard date. We have only once chance to get this right. We must be prepared -- as much as humanly possible -- for whatever occurs. There is no precedent for what we are about to do," wrote Copps, in the letter which included nine suggestions of how to ease the transition.
He's not alone, according to Broadcasting & Cable. Wade Hargrove, an attorney representing the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters also reportedly supports a 30-day grace period.
"It seems to me that Congress should give serious consideration to stations to continue to broadcast 30 days in analog carrying a slate like the
Wilmington stations," he told Broadcasting & Cable.
It's a reasonable suggestion, and it's hard to imagine that there would be much resistance to it. Then again, the proposed grace period could require that some broadcasters absorb the costs of both digital and analog transmissions at once, which may not be insignificant.
In the meantime, we may be able to glean more from FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who is scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on the DTV transition tomorrow.
Photo: Flickr/tvol
See Also:
