39 Percent of Stations to Cut Analog TV By Feb. 18
Nearly two fifths of U.S. full-power TV stations will have terminated analog service by Feb. 18, the day after the original deadline for the switch to digital, FCC figures show. Among the 1,758 U.S. stations as of June 30, 681 told the commission they already stopped analog transmissions or plan to do so by the end of Feb. 17, said an agency public notice. The owners of hundreds of stations have said they'll stay on-air in analog until June (CD Feb 10 p1).
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The FCC said 190 stations will have ceased analog broadcasting by Feb. 18, and agency officials said most had previously shared those plans with the commission. Among those stations, more than 100 already went all-digital, said FCC officials. That includes states like Hawaii and markets like Wilmington, N.C., where all or most full-power broadcasters stopped analog service early. The public notice, released at about 5 p.m. Tuesday, said 491 stations told the FCC they plan to stop analog broadcasting Tuesday. The remaining full-power stations in the U.S. will continue broadcasting in analog until as late as June 12, the new date for the digital transition, said agency officials.
A potential cause for concern among commissioners is that all or most stations in many markets have told the regulator they plan to stop analog service next week, said agency officials. Such plans have been made by stations in as many as 75 markets, they said. That’s about a third of all Nielsen TV markets. The FCC will closely review filings by stations in those cases to determine whether to revoke the blanket permission it gave all broadcasters Thursday to stop analog broadcasts on Feb. 17, said agency officials. The commission may seek more information from stations seeking to cut off analog service in markets where most of their rivals also want to and may block those plans, they said.
Fort Myers, Fla., is one such market. The NBC, ABC, CBS and CW affiliates all plan to end analog programming Feb. 17, said Dan Billings, director of technical operations for Waterman Broadcasting, which owns NBC affiliate WBBH-TV Fort Myers and operates nearby ABC affiliate WZVN-TV Naples. They'll run a message announcing the DTV transition on their analog transmissions for two days after ending programming at noon on Tuesday, in addition to running phone banks that afternoon and evening. Fort Myers viewers are likely to be prepared for the switch Tuesday, Billings said. “They're pretty astute.” Cable penetration is above 80 percent in the area and stations have been running crawls, DTV spots and simulating analog shut downs, he said.
Trying to assess the number of stations that will go all-digital Feb. 17 was difficult even after the deadline at 11:59 p.m. Monday for stations to tell the FCC of such plans, industry officials said. Lawyers and consultants said they found no straightforward way to track the number of requests to terminate service on Feb. 17 that came in Monday before midnight, and we couldn’t find a method that worked, either. “We don’t know of any good way to go through this unless you go through on a station by station basis on” the FCC’s Consolidated Database System, said Bob du Treil, president of du Treil, Lundin & Rackley, a broadcast engineering consultant.