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Stations flooded with calls after digital switch

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By Josh Sweigart, Staff Writer Updated 6:31 PM Friday, June 12, 2009

For residents relying on rabbit ears alone, local TV stations started going dark early Friday morning as they complied with the federal deadline to switch to a digital-only signal.

This resulted in hundreds of phone calls from concerned viewers, according to Elbert Tucker, news director of WKRC Local 12, whose station stopped its analog broadcast at 1:50 a.m. Friday, June 12.

Most of the callers had converter boxes and thought they were prepared, but weren’t aware they had to rescan for channels after the switch. “The majority of calls ... are from people who seem to be older,” he said.

Matters are worse for viewers of WCPO, Channel 9. A notice on that station’s Web site says its broadcast tower isn’t strong enough to hold both its analog and digital antennas, and workers won’t have the digital antenna in place until June 26.

Most people were well prepared for the switch, but surveys suggest 2.2 million households nationwide weren’t ready at the beginning of June. That is nearly half the number that were unready in February, when most analog TV broadcasts were originally scheduled to be turned off. The shutdown was delayed for four months at the White House’s request.

Dale Richter, manager of Radio Shack in Hamilton, said his store has fielded a lot of confused calls last week.

“(When) the phone rings, there’s a four-out-of-five chance it’s about a converter box,” he said.

He said most people are surprised how much their television experience has changed. Many viewers lose some weaker signals, but gain many more sub-channels. The average antenna and converter box, he said, will pick up roughly 30 channels.

Richter said he’s fully stocked with digital converter boxes, expecting a few last minute stragglers.

Requests for $40 converter box coupons from the government spiked this week, according the to the Department of Commerce. On Monday, June 8, alone, it received requests for 179,000 coupons, nearly twice the daily rate it saw a month ago. It takes nine business days to mail them, so those people didn’t get the coupons by Friday. Without the government discount, converter boxes generally cost between $40 and $60.

The switch went unnoticed by people with cable or satellite service.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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