After 400+ Stations Make the Switch to Digital, Questions Keep Coming

Washington, DC – This week, nearly a quarter of all local broadcasters across the country made the switch to digital on the original DTV deadline, permanently shutting off their analog signals.

Many experts worried that the early transition would create confusion for the millions of over-the-air television viewers that lost access to one or more channels Tuesday, but there is a silver lining – the February 17 switch is creating an early warning that allows viewers to troubleshoot converter box problems and perhaps encourage those who haven’t made the transition to act now before all channels go digital.

“This has created a sort of rolling transition in which communities began losing selected stations but not every station,” said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. “And that has given affected viewers a very real indication, letting them know that they’re going to have to make this transition work for them and take action now.”

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF) has partnered with community partners in seven cities – Atlanta, GA; San Antonio, TX; Detroit, MI; Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; and the Bay Area, CA – to provide outreach and assistance centers in at-risk communities. Many of these centers have local hotlines, provide walk-in technical assistance, help people apply for the coupon, conduct converter box trainings, and collect donated coupons.

“We’ve gone from receiving about 100 calls per week to 100 a day,” said DeAnne Cuellar of Texas Media Empowerment Project at Esperanza in San Antonio, where two local stations turned off their analog signals on Tuesday.  “It’s a huge increase, and we’re not just receiving questions about the coupon program anymore.  For some people – because of where they live or the TV they have – it might be more difficult to make the transition, and we are trying to provide technical assistance as those questions come in.”

“We’ve been hearing a wide range of questions from our community since Tuesday,” said Tracy Rosenberg of Media Alliance in Oakland.  “Some people were unaware of the transition and others thought they were ready but found that they had antenna problems or needed to re-scan to pick up the new digital signals.”

Viewers who are having trouble or who would like to apply for a converter box coupon can call the recently beefed up FCC hotline 1-888-CALL-FCC with trained technicians standing by to provide DTV assistance.