DTV switcheroo: Please do not adjust your picture ... that's OUR job

As I reported on Thursday, today's shutoff of local analog TV signals is not the final step in the digital transition. Now it's time for the fine tunin'!

Analog antennas will come off the towers, and the digital antennas will be readjusted — in one instance the antenna is moving from one stick to another stick several miles away — and engineers will be busy trying to squeeze the most out of their one-and-only TV signals.

When it's over, the improvement will be dramatic. Here is a large file containing maps showing the new coverage area of each of the local stations in town after they make their adjustments in the coming weeks. The green dots you see are new homes served; in the case of KCPT, which is going from a 55kw digital signal to one with a megawatt of effective radiated power, that is a bunch of homes. Mostly, the service areas of the local stations will expand from 1.8-2 million now to the 2.2-2.3 million range.

Meanwhile, according to the NAB, not much is happening ...

Local Television Stations Continue to Report Low to Moderate Call Volume

WASHINGTON — Of the 525 full-power television stations nationwide that switched to all-digital broadcasting by 6 p.m. (EDT) today, nearly half have reported receiving low to moderate call volume in the several hours following their transition.

In response to a survey conducted by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), about 250 stations have received an average of 121 calls and a median of 40 calls as of 8 p.m. (EDT) today. The call volume is considerably low given that the transition impacts an estimated 14 million over-the-air households in markets with at least one station going all-digital by 6 p.m. today.

Rescanning for digital channels, converter box installation and antennas are consistently the most common issues viewers are having across markets. The results of NAB’s formal survey thus far are supported by informal reports from major TV station groups including Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television, E.W. Scripps Company, Raycom Media and ION Media Networks.

“These new findings from local stations support data that we’ve had – that the vast majority of Americans affected by the transition are prepared,” said Jonathan Collegio, vice president for digital television at NAB. “A relatively small percentage of viewers so far have needed assistance given the large number of broadcast-only households affected during the today’s transition. Importantly, much of the assistance sought by viewers has been on the relatively minor issue of scanning and re-scanning converter boxes and digital TV sets.”