DTV preparedness now more than 95-percent

by Steven Kim posted May 1st 2009 at 10:16PM

Here we are, a little more than a month away from the ~~February 17~~ June 12 analog shutoff date, and sure enough, more people have grabbed hold of a digital tuner in one device or another. According to Nielsen, the number of unprepared homes is now at 3.1-percent (3.5-million homes). To put that in perspective, recall that at the start of February, we were sitting at 5.1-percent. We're pretty impressed that the number has moved below the 5-percent mark, and certainly a lot of credit goes to stations that went ahead with the switch ahead of the June 12 deadline. Zeno and his paradox aside, we've got high hopes that the June 12th date is going to stick, folks!

Filed under: Industry, Regulatory, OTA

Tags: analog shutoff, AnalogShutoff, cutoff, digital tv, DigitalTv, dtv, dtv switchover, dtv transition, DtvSwitchover, DtvTransition, nielsen, switchover, transition

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

xemumanic @ May 1st 2009 11:14PM

So wait, are you saying adding this most recent delay actually WORKED?

............REALLY?!
I'll be damned.

PS. I never thought how to pronounce my handle, its just an amalgamation of things, but I guess it'd be 'Zem-Yo-Manic'

Highest Ranked

Cory @ May 2nd 2009 1:12AM

I hope 95% is enough to go ahead with the switch...

"OH NO 5% arn't ready DELAY DELAY DELAY"
-DC folks

Highest Ranked

Eric @ May 2nd 2009 5:24AM

Hopefully this means no more delays. I seem to remember drinking a nice cool bottle of Crystal Pepsi when this transition was announced.

Neutral

highdefjunkies @ May 2nd 2009 7:51AM

Just get it done. Seriously, this is ridiculous.

CC

Neutral

kevon27 @ May 2nd 2009 3:08PM

Instead of giving people $40 to get a converter box, the government should give people FREE cable (with HD).
Look, we now have a Socialist government and with a SUPER, ULTRA, MEGA socialist President. Free Cable for all.. That's fair.

Neutral

Britboyj27 @ May 2nd 2009 5:12PM

Except then you've just saddled everyone with a crappy cable provider, if they're one of the few people who don't already live in a cable area who don't have it.

A large, large number of people who don't have people, like me, can't get it. I have Dish Network (Turbo HD) and a 3G Aircard for my Internet because there is ZERO high speed or cable options available to me.

This is a gadget blog, keep your political stuff out of it.

Neutral

kevon27 @ May 2nd 2009 8:58PM

under this new socialist system, people like you will be covered. Oba,,,,, I mean, the President will FORCE the cable companies to run cooper to your area. Else, the CEO will have to step down... cough... GM

Neutral

NoAndThen @ May 3rd 2009 11:14PM

Yeah, maybe if they bailed out that cable company like we did with GM, dolt.

Please go away with your trolling negative assumptions around here.

This is meant to be about gadgets and the occasional ridiculous flame wars about them... not politics.

GO AWAY.

Neutral

kevon27 @ May 4th 2009 9:31AM

Ah, man... you people take things way to seriously.. Life is short man.

Neutral

Lauren Glenn @ May 5th 2009 2:47PM

You know what would make it 100%? If you turned it off in February.

This date has been posted everywhere for a while now. Hopefully, people won't start complaining in a couple weeks that June 11th is too soon. I've been ready for months and have been enjoying free HD. It's not a matter of money so much as not procrastinating. The DTV converter boxes haven't gotten much cheaper since then. I picked one up on eBay for $25 and it was a very good one, Insignia.

We don't need free HD cable because then we couldn't use multiple tuner cards for the PC and we'd be stuck with the CableCard monopoly. I wouldn't mind it, but I'd rather have the OTA stuff. Cable compresses their signal too much.

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