Our friend Rachel has been all over the digital TV conversion story, and she reported that at least one station up in Madison is
sticking with the Feb. 17 date. I saw today that one of my local stations is
doing likewise. It turns out that Feb. 9 was the deadline for stations to declare what date they would switch, and almost 500 went with the
original date rather than the extended June date. It turns out that a lot of these stations are small, though. (Note to Mom: you will lose PBS and Fox on those two TVs, according to the list I saw.)
I thought Congress might not be too happy that stations dare defy them, and that Congress might respond with wrath and vengeance, but it turns out Congress made the switch voluntary. However, the FCC has the option to make stations wait until June (see last link above). This is probably why all the big stations are waiting; they knew they'd be rejected. Instead, they're "serving the public interest" by waiting, according to the FCC Chairman. Whatever.
By this point, I think I've seen four of my stations declare for February (although one of those is the CW, so it's not the four major networks).
ReplyDeleteThe list says all the major stations, plus CW, are switching early in Madison. However, the FCC will probably get mad at that. The number of stations that are prevented from switching early could reach triple digits.
ReplyDeleteMy cable company says I won't lose any. Hmmm.
ReplyDeleteOops, wrong Mom. :)
ReplyDelete