Less than 24 hours to digital TV - New Mexico Business Weekly:

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The switch to digital which frees up bandwidth for other communicationds uses such as public safetyfirst responders, was schedulec to be completed Feb. 17, but was postponed becausd about 6 million households were still unpreparecd to continue receiving a signal on their televisiom sets and government funds to subsidize purchaseds of converter boxes hadrun out. The converter boxes are necessary to alloq households with televisions receiving analog signals to also receive the newdigital signals. New antennas for some televisions also will be necessarh to provide the best reception afte rthe switch.
With the extension of the digital televisiotransition deadline, another $650 million was adder to the $1.5 billion initially committed to the including the $40 coupon program and other and preparednesas programs. Now, the latest industry estimates indicatre that the number of unprepared households has been cut nearlyhin half. The Nielsen Co. and NAB, the , put the unpreparedx households numberbetween 2.8 million and three million, according to receny measures by each entity. That’ about 12 percent of at-risk householda that could still lose access to important news and alerts when theswitcb happens, according to NAB’s latest survety completed by SmithGeiger LLC June 3.
However, 3 percengt of those households have either applieds for or received a convertere box coupon fromthe government, according to the survey. Whil e commissioners at the are anticipatingy a smoother transition than they say would have occurrexin February, they will spend $40 milliojn to staff call centers across the country. One last challenge for television viewers afterthe switch: findinfg your favorite channels. On June 12, some digital stationws already on the air will changedchannel numbers.
To ensure televisions receivse all available stations broadcasting in aparticularf market, viewers may need to force their digital televisions or set-top converter boxes to “autpo tune,” or re-scan, for all available channels.