Issues

President's Column: Anticipating the Digital Switch

Barbara Cochran

In less than three months, the United States will conduct one of the most sweeping overnight transformations of consumer habits in history. On February 17, television stations are required
by the government to shut off the signal they have transmitted for decades and rely solely on a new digital signal to reach their viewers. Judging from the first test in early September in Wilmington, NC, stations and newsrooms need to be prepared to deal with confusion, questions and complaints.

The test in Wilmington was declared a success. But it still showed that there is a lot of work to be done between now and February 17 and much of that burden is going to fall on broadcasters.

As a Federal Communications Commission staffer said, the DTV transition will not be a Y2K-type non-event. He was referring to the anxiety and feverish preparations that preceded the dawn of the year 2000, when many feared that the world’s computers would be flummoxed by the rollover from 1999 and crash ignominiously. Instead, the transition from one century to another proceeded smoothly. In the DTV case, however, the going may be more diffi
cult and defi nitely requires plenty of attention.

That was the conclusion of a daylong conference on the DTV transition held recently by the Association for Maximum Service Television. The conference brought together government officials and industry leaders representing broadcasters, cable and satellite operators and consumer electronics manufacturers and retailers. All agreed that while a lot of progress has been made in raising public awareness and making the necessary preparations, efforts need
to intensify to avoid many problems on the day the transition occurs.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is leading the government side of the effort to educate consumers. The agency also is running the government’s converter box program, which provides up to two $40 certificates to any household to purchase a device that will enable an analog television set to receive over-the-air digital signals.

Viewers who subscribe to a cable or satellite service will experience no disruption. But anyone with a set that receives over-the-air broadcasts by antenna or rabbit ears will lose their signal
on February 17 unless they get a converter box, or purchase a new television set.

Anita Wallgren, NTIA’s DTV converter program director, said that, as of late September, 26 million coupons had been mailed and 10.5 million had been used. A total of 2,400 retailers at 30,000 locations across the country are participating in the coupon program.

Jonathan Collegio of the National Association of Broadcasters, which is leading the broadcast industry’s efforts to educate the public about the transition, said their surveys show about 90
percent of the public is aware change is coming to their television. Still, in late October, Nielsen reported that 9 million households are not yet readyand another 12.6 million have at least one television set that won’t work after the transition.

That’s why the Wilmington test was watched so closely. On September 8, all stations in the market cut off their analog signals. About 1,800 people called a special FCC hotline with questions or concerns. Of all those callers, only 23 were not even aware of the transition date.

Most were having problems with their converter boxes. Many had not tested the boxes in advance of the signal cutoff. Some needed to rescan their boxes to acquire the digital signal. And some found that the digital signal of one of the stations in the market did not reach them as the analog signal had.

The government and industry experts agreed on the lessons learned for the rest of the country. There needs to be more education in advance, more help on box installation, more focus on the need to rescan and more attention to the positioning of antennas.

Wilmington has been in the path of hurricanes many times, so it was appropriate that one station manager used a hurricane-preparedness analogy. He said even when there is lots of advance warning of the impending storm, there are still people who wait until the last minute to go to the store to stock up on water and fl ashlight batteries.

That’s why NTIA is worried that people will not allow enough time for delivery of their coupons, won’t use them right away to purchase a converter box or will wait until the cutoff date to install and test the box. To encourage consumers to test their boxes well in advance, NTIA’s new motto is, “Apply, buy and try."

The FCC said the Wilmington test was a success because less than one-half of one percent of consumers in the market called with a question or problem.

Others cautioned that Wilmington had received special attention that the rest of the country is not� going to get, with multiple visits from FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and other commissioners.
A survey showed 97 percent of Wilmington citizens were aware of the DTV changeover, higher than the 90 percent for the United States as a whole.

The publication Television Technology looked at the figures differently. Only 14,000 households in the market depend solely on over-the-air signals. That means the 1,800 calls plus a few
hundred more that went to local stations or other agencies represent more than 10 percent of those directly affected by the analog cutoff. Extrapolated to the entire country, that could mean as many as 1.8 million calls on February 17. Many at the conference were concerned about how that volume of calls would be handled.

Professor Connie Ledoux Book of Elon University, whose students helped staff the call center for the Wilmington test, recommended that local call centers be created, staffed by people who know the local stations and the terrain.

Broadcasters have already invested an enormous amount in the transition to digital television. They have paid for the expense of converting their facilities and building new transmission towers.

The FCC says that of 1,813 stations, 1,012 are ready, 685 are on track to be ready, 97 need more time but are 85 percent complete and only 10 stations will need a later transition date.
DTV will allow stations to offer for free crystal-clear pictures and sound, more channels and more programming.

The move will also free up parts of the spectrum for other uses and innovations, while allowing broadcasters to expand their services. The net result will be a better experience for the television
viewer and a new world of opportunities for television stations.

Stations are in the best position to help make the DTV transition a success. Prof. Book found that most people in Wilmington learned about the transition from watching television. People
listen to anchors and reporters and they get information from newscasts.

Doesn’t a story this big deserve time in your newscast? That’s why RTNDA has provided some story ideas to help you keep your community informed.

David Rehr, president of NAB, and Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association, which represents television set makers and retailers, agreed that a lot of progress has been made and that the Wilmington test confi rmed that. “Let’s keep this in perspective,” Shapiro said. “We’re doing phenomenally well.”

With good anticipation of what the public needs to know and a strong informational effort by local stations, DTV 2009 just might go as smoothly as Y2K.—Barbara Cochran may be reached at
president@rtnda.org.

More Story Ideas About the Digital Transition
1. Follow a member of the community as they apply for a digital converter coupon, receive the coupon, redeem the coupon to buy the converter and then test the converter.

2. Introduction to the converter box: How do you test it? What does it mean to rescan?

3. During the Wilmington test, viewers in nearby Myrtle Beach, SC, who had been able to get Wilmington stations on analog were unable to find some digital signals. Tell your viewers in
outlying areas what they can do if they can’t fi nd you on February 17.

4. During the holidays, families will be getting together. Younger, more technically savvy relatives can help older relatives connect their converter boxes and test them.

5. Talk about what can be done for people who are most at risk for disruption, including the elderly, minorities, or disabled and special needs consumers.