The Twin Cities viewing area is No. 11 on the list of markets waiting for converter-box coupons in advance of the June 12 digital TV conversion, based on the number of viewers who have requested the vouchers. The U.S. Commerce Department recently released the figures as part of the kick-start of the coupon program, which had stalled after it ran out of money.

According to the report, 41,051 households in the Twin Cities viewing area — or 1.68 percent — are on the waiting list for the $40 vouchers, which are designed to defray the costs of converter boxes needed to receive digital signals on older analog TV sets with over-the-air antennas. Los Angeles (153,646, or 6.3 percent) is No. 1 on the list, followed by New York City, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Puerto Rico, Houston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta and Miami-Fort Lauderdale.

 The above figures are for all households, including those that don’t use over-the-air (OTA) antennas as their sole source of TV programming. For example, they might have cable but have one TV with an antenna in a spare room. Counting just OTA households in the Twin Cities – those that would lose all programming if the switch was made today – the numbers are about half, 20,385 or .84 percent.

So where does that leave the rest of the estimated 6 percent (if you believe that number) of Twin Cities OTA viewers who the government says are not ready for the switch? They must be (1) planning to switch to cable or satellite, (2) buying a digital TV, (3) buying a converter box without a coupon, (4) still procrastinating on doing any of the above or (5) giving up TV altogether. Did I miss anything?Â

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 2:11 pm and is filed under DTV switchover. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.