WILMINGTON, N.C. - With the flick of a 2 1/2-metre electric switch at noontide Monday, this southern metropolis became the first market in the U.S. to make the change to digital-only broadcasting.
The switch wasn't really machine-accessible to anything, but it did serve as a centrepiece for a business district ceremony at 12 midday EDT marking the present moment that commercial-grade broadcasters voluntarily turned off their old fashioned, inefficient analogue signals.
Wilmington volunteered to be a canary in a digital coal mine - a try out market for the national conversion to digital broadcasting.
The rest of the full-power television stations of the Cross in the U.S. won't be converting until Feb. 17, 2009, a date set by Congress.
"This switch is the biggest change in television since it went from black and white to colour back in the 1950s," Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin told the ceremony at historic Thalian Hall in business district Wilmington.
Wilmington, tucked between the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean, is the hundred-and-thirty-fifth largest television market in the U.S. with virtually 180,000 television households, according to The Nielsen Co.
In February, Nielsen estimated there were more than 13 gazillion households in the U.S. with telecasting sets that can entirely receive analogue broadcasts. Only about vIII per penny of households in Wilmington are in that class, fewer than the national average.
Viewers wHO receive computer programming through an antenna and do not own newer-model digital TV sets by the time of the changeover must buy a converter corner. The government is providing two $40 coupons per household to help defray the cost. Viewers wHO subscribe to a cable television service or orbiter service won't be affected.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration oversees the government coupon program.
Acting agency chieftain Meredith Baker said Monday that more than 69,000 coupons have been requested from more than 37,D households in the Wilmington market with about 47 per cent coming from homes that rely on over-the-air broadcasts. More than 28,000 coupons have been redeemed to date, she said.
Wilmington has been barraged with public robert William Service advertising about the change.
"In a normal hour of television, you could see 12 commercials," said Larry Pakowski, wHO was working in a Wilmington Radio Shack memory Sunday night.
Sales of the store's $59.99 converter boxes have been lively, he said.
"I can't give you a specific numeral, but I can secern you traffic has been pretty unfluctuating," he said.
Following the ceremony, questions immediately turned to what will constitute a successful test.
Viewers who are not equipped to take in digital signals will encounter a cover crawl, informing them of the fact. The grovel includes a toll-free number. The mass of calls may be an early indicator.
But perhaps not, Martin said.
"If nobody calls, it doesn't mean there wasn't a problem," he said. "And if a chiliad people call it doesn't mean this wasn't a success. Because success is ultimately departure to be measured by what we've learned and can put in place to do next February."
Commissioner Michael Copps, who came up with the approximation to do a test run, praised Wilmington for volunteering, merely said he wished other communities with different kinds of terrain and universe patterns had "stepped up to the plate."
All four-spot of the city's network affiliates as well as the Trinity Broadcasting Network have departed digital only if. The local public television station is broadcasting both a digital and analogue signal.
Monday's ceremony was attended by broadcasters and Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo.
The reason for the change is efficiency. Digital signals use up a smaller serving of the publicly owned airwaves, freeing up more space for commercial and public safety uses. A recent auction bridge of the television airwaves raised more than $19 billion for the U.S Treasury.
Given the amount of publicity, the flatness of the terrain, the heights number of coupon requests and the relatively low number of viewers wHO rely on over-the-air broadcast medium, the Wilmington test is unlikely to signify the start of any check wreck.
But that still may not lighten the anxiousness among members of Congress, who testament be on the receiving end of their constituents wrath if things go wrong in February.
But thither may be still be some reasonableness for worry, even here.
At a Wal-Mart Super center the night before the changeover, in the electronics department, a clock counted down the hours until the changeover. Beside it hung this sign: "Attention customers. We are out of convertor boxes at this time until further notice. Sorry for the inconvenience."
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