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? 

More than one-third of the nation’s TV stations, 641, have shut off their analog broadcasts as part of the government-mandated switch to digital television. Many of them, 421, did so on Tuesday, the original date of the transition, including the CW (Channel 23) in the Twin Cities and several others across the state.  Initial reports are that stations nationwide had a relatively low number of calls from viewers complaining they had lost their signal. Here’s more on that, along with other notes about the transition:

Post-switch fallout: Of the government-estimated 12.4 million households that receive over-the-air broadcasts exclusively, the FCC said it received 28,000 calls from viewers nationwide after Tuesday’s big shutdown. That’s 0.23 percent of the people affected. That’s incredibly low. Four things could be going on here: (1) The affected people didn’t really care about the one or two channels they lost. (2) They haven’t yet realized they lost the channels. (3) The large shutdown in advance of the all-out switch on June 12 prompted those people to finally do something about it — switch to cable or satellite, buy a new TV or get a converter box for their old setup. (4) The estimates of how many people are affected are overstated. It’s probably all four.

Operational issues: When I talked to general manager Bill Sanford of Lakeland Public Television in the Bemidji-Brainerd area for an article, he said most of the calls his station received had to do with people asking questions about setting up the converter boxes needed for analog TVs to receive the digital signal. Sanford said one viewer who was having issues didn’t know he had to plug in the device. Seriously. The National Association of Broadcasters said that of the 50 to 200 calls that stations received on average after Tuesday’s switch, most dealt with converter-box issues and most questions were resolved over the phone. The biggest problem apparently is rescanning. Often when stations shut off their analog signals, other moves are made that affect the digitial signal (such as moving from a UHF frequency back to VHF), and viewers don’t know that they need to have their box rescan to continue receiving the channel. 

Converter box program: Nearly 4 million people are on the waiting list for $40 vouchers to defray the costs of buying a converter box. The U.S. Department of Commerce says those coupons should finally start going out early next month, now that the government has re-funded the program. The agency expects to clear the backlog over the month of March. Incidentally, of the 52.4 million vouchers requested since the program started a year ago, only 23.4 million were actually redeemed before they expired.  However, I assume that people requesting coupons at this late date are more likely to use them since it’s being done out of need not as insurance. 

Channel 17: One thing lost in the hubbub over Tuesday’s switch was that Channel 17 went away in the Twin Cities on Wednesday. This was the secondary channel operated by Twin Cities Public Television, and it carried multiple feeds of PBS programming. Some of those programs will now be shown on Channel 2’s multiple feeds. TPT has a more thorough explanation of what happened with Channel 17 on its website.

Finally, one reader called to complain about why the media is giving so much attention to the less than 6 percent of people who reportedly aren’t prepared for the switch. The converse is that more than 94 percent of people are prepared, she said. Sanford at Lakeland Public Television echoed that when he pointed out that his station has been preparing for the switch for five years and mounted a big campaign to inform viewers about it, including monthly call-in shows that were broadcast live. At some point, he said, people have to do something.

What’s it going to be like on June 12?

The CW Twin Cities, Channel 23, will cut off its analog signal tonight at 11:59. That means viewers who watch TV using an over-the-air antenna on older analog sets will not be able to watch the channel unless they have purchased a converter box. Although Congress extended the date for the digital TV switchover from today to June 12, the legislation allowed stations to make the switch early (actually, on the original date).

“For the past year, television stations, including this station, have notified viewers of the February 17, 2009, analog shutoff date through on-air announcements, informational crawls, full-length programs, and their website,” the CW Twin Cities said on its website. “As a result, in order to avoid additional confusion due to the date change and as permitted by the recently enacted legislation, this station has notified the FCC that we would like to cease analog operations … as originally planned. … We are currently airing announcements throughout the day to inform our viewers that we will terminate analog broadcasting.”

According to the Associated Press, these other Minnesota TV stations will also be ending their analog broadcasts today and going all-digital:

Duluth-Superior: WDIO-TV (ABC), WIRT (ABC), KBJR-TV
Outstate: KWCM (PBS, Appleton), KAWE/KAWB (PBS, Lakeland Public Television) 
Rochester-Mason City-Austin: KTTC (NBC), KXLT-TV (Fox)
Worthington: KSMN (PBS) (Sioux Falls market)

For more on today’s fractured switch to DTV across the nation, see the Associated Press’ report.

Good news, Twin Cities. We’re actually much readier for the switch to digital TV today than we were a year ago. Back then, the 59 Minnesota counties and 9 Wisconsin counties that make up the Twin Cities viewing area were the second-worst among 56 U.S. metro areas — behind only Portland, Ore. — in the number of households unprepared for the transition. Today, according to the most recent study by Nielsen, the Twin Cities area has moved all the way to the middle of the pack (21st worst) — ahead of places like San Diego, Cleveland, Phoenix, Dallas, Memphis and, yes, poor Portland  – with only 5.85 percent of households still not ready for the switch. That puts the Twin Cities close to the national average of 5.7 percent, according to Nielsen.

That’s only one of several positive things about the DTV switch that are getting lost in the reporting of Congress’ likely decision to push the Feb. 17 date for the transition to June 12.  Here are some others:

* More than 94 percent of U.S. homes are ready for the transition, as Ben Patterson points out for the Yahoo! Tech Gadget Hound blog. At some point, someone has to flip the switch before the rest of the affected people will actually take action.

* More than 1.3 million homes made the switch since the end of December, Nielsen says, from 6.8 percent to 5.7 percent. That’s a significant bump in less than a month and a sign that procrastinators were switching quickly as the original deadline neared.

* Even though a popular viral video pokes fun at old people for not knowing anything about the transition, they are actually more prepared than any other measured segment, according to Nielsen, with 4 percent of those 55 and older ready. In comparison, a whopping 8.8 percent of those under 35 are not ready.

* Some analog TVs are being counted as being “unready” for the switch even if they aren’t used to watch TV programming. These are sets being used, say, in a family room for a dedicated DVD player (actually, probably a VCR) or a video-game system.

* Nielsen’s most recent figures don’t include those who already have government-issued vouchers but haven’t bought a converter box yet. They also can’t capture those people who were planning to subscribe to cable/satellite or buy a new digital TV in response to the switch but were merely putting off the move until the last minute. Now, they have an excuse to wait even longer.

There’s no debating that the switch was scuttled in its final weeks by the government running out of money to fund the vouchers. But the focus should be on getting more money for the voucher program to fulfill the 2.6 million requests in limbo (and thus putting a serious dent in the number of unprepared households), not moving a highly publicized date that has been set for several years.

The news that President-elect Barack Obama’s team wants to delay the Feb. 17 transition to digital TV surely came as a shock to advocates like me, who have been writing about the switch for a year now. The truth is that the switchover has been in the works for years and has often been delayed. Finally, after all of those stop and starts, the Feb. 17 date was set and the word has definitely gotten out. You can’t turn on your TV without seeing a PSA for the impending switch and what to do about it, no matter your income level. While it’s true that the government has run out of money to fund the vouchers for affected viewers to buy converter boxes, the action that needs to be taken is to re-fund the program — as Congress has done in the past when it’s run out — not delay the switch. What will happen if the switch is postponed? The affected people who have procrastinated to this point will simply put off taking action again. This has little to do with income levels and everything to do with inaction. Until the switch actually happens, people who have put off preparing for it won’t be prompted to do anything. After all, if they had done something in the year since the switch has been heavily publicized, we would have known before now that the coupon program was running low.

If you put off getting a converter-box coupon for the Feb. 17 digital-TV switchover, you might be out of luck. The federal government has run out of money to fund the program, which grants a $40 voucher to those who watch TV on an analog set using an over-the-air antenna so they can buy a converter box. Starting this week, anyone who applies for the coupon will be put on a waiting list; as money from expired coupons becomes available, new ones will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

“Because of the high demand for coupons, the program reached its $1.34 billion ceiling, which consists of ordered and redeemed coupons,” the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration explained.

The outlook is probably good for procrastinators. The first reason is that of the nearly 42 million coupons mailed to date, nearly a third expired because people never used them (although anyone ordering at this late date probably really needs them). The second reason is this quote from acting NTIA administrator Meredith Attwell Baker:  “We are working with Congress, the incoming administration and other stakeholders to ensure everyone is prepared for the transition and no one is left in the dark.” That relief would probably come in the form of another allocation of money for the program, which has happened before.