BY L. LAMOR WILLIAMS
Posted on Saturday, February 7, 2009
Some Arkansans unprepared for the switch to digital television broadcasting will see some stations go blank Feb. 17.
A measure postponing the transition from analog to digital over-the-air broadcast signals to June 12 now awaits President Barack Obama's signature to become law. But one Little Rock television station said Friday that it plans to take advantage of an exemption in the law to notify the Federal Communications Commission on Monday that it will switch off analog broadcasting Feb. 17 as planned.
In Northwest Arkansas, one station said it will continue broadcasting analog signals until the June deadline, while its sister station reports it shut down its aging analog transmitters in November.
Chuck Spohn, general manager of KLRT-TV, Channel 16, said that while some stations in the Newport Television family will wait until June to switch from analog to digital broadcasting, the Little Rock market is ready.
"We looked at all the factors and felt that the market is adequately prepared based on the statistics we're looking at," Spohn said. "I've seen numbers that say less than 6 percent of viewers aren't prepared.
"The government numbers say that about 1 million people nationally converted within the last month. It's a fluid situation that's getting better every day," he said.
The Nielsen Co. has estimated that more than 6.5 million U.S. households rely on older analog television sets to pick up over-the-air broadcast signals could see their TV sets go dark if the transition is not postponed. About 144,000 households in Arkansas get their television signal over the air, according to a survey done last year by Nielsen Media Research.
The research firm recently released a report listing the areas least prepared for the transition. Memphis ranked seventh with about 8.5 percent of households completely unready. The Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area ranked second, and least prepared was the Albuquerque-Santa Fe, N.M, metro area, with about 12.2 percent of households being completely unready. The report is available at www. nielsen.com. No information specific to Arkansas was available.
At least one Little Rock station will take advantage of the delay.
Larry Audas, president and general manager of KTHV-TV, Channel 11, said the station will not switch off its analog transmitters until the June deadline.
"The powers that be deem June as the right time, and we concur with the need to make preparedness as absolute as possible," Audas said. "During that time period the coupon matters and other concerns can be addressed."
Obama originally called for delaying the transition after a government program offering $40 coupons to analog-TV viewers to help defray the $40-$80 cost of a digital converter box hit its $1.34 billion limit in January. This resulted in viewers applying for coupons being placed on a waiting list. They will receive coupons when additional federal dollars are approved.
The FCC has said any station planning to shut off analog signals on the originally mandated date must notify the FCC by Monday.
Spohn said the challenge now is making sure the station meets FCC viewer notification requirements before making the switch as originally scheduled.
In a public notice, available online at www.fcc.gov, the FCC directs stations that want to switch this month to provide the equivalent of 30-days notice to its viewers.
"Starting on the 10th, we will be running five-minute crawls every hour, five days a week," Spohn said. "Then on the 15th and 16th, they go to 10-minute crawls every hour. It's supposed to be the equivalent of 30-days notice."
Other Little Rock-area station managers did not respond to phone messages late Friday afternoon.
In Northwest Arkansas, KFTA-TV Channel 24, the Fox affiliate, and KNWA-TV, Channel 51, the NBC affiliate, are sister stations.
Mike Vaughn, general manager for KNWA, said the station would continue to broadcast analog signals through June 12.
However, Marty Houston, station manager for KFTA, said his station has not broadcast over the air since November, making the June 12 deadline of little consequence.
He said the station had already notified the FCC that it was shutting off the analog signal.
"It got to the point where the analog transmitter was costprohibitive," he said. "We tried everything we could to make it to the Feb. 17 deadline, we even brought in parts from sister stations, one in Terra Haute, Ind., but it got to the point where we were going to have to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep it running."
Tony Brooks, deputy executive director of the Arkansas Educational Telecommunications Network, said Friday that a decision had not been made on what the network will do.
"By Monday at noon, we'll know exactly what we're going to do," he said. Managers at two other stations that serve central Arkansas, KATV-TV, Channel 7, and KTHV-TV, Channel 11, did not immediately return telephone messages Friday seeking information about their switchover plans.
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