Mystery of the missing DTV transition panic

By all accounts thus far, last Friday's shutdown of the VHF and UHF video frequencies that supplied Americans with television service since the 1940s, took place without serious incidents. Although the Associated Press over the weekend cited FCC officials as estimating over 800,000 calls to its nationwide DTV call center, that number was trimmed significantly over the weekend, with estimates provided to Broadcasting & Cable up to Sunday coming in at 525,000.

While Friday alone saw a record 317,000 calls within a one-day period, believed to be a single-day record for a federal call center network, all reports indicate the network was prepared to handle the volume.

In a speech last Saturday, Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps made note of the following little benchmark in history: While his predecessor had years to prepare and was said by his own fellow commissioners to have left the transition efforts in a "shambles," Chairman Copps mitigated what might have become a national disaster in just over five months' time.

"As we all know, a transition of this size inevitably entails a measure of disruption," the acting chairman said. "We did our best to anticipate it and to minimize it in the time we had. In the less-than-five months we had since a new team took over, we cut the number of unprepared households in half. We put systems in place like in-home assistance and our National Call Center to help those who were still caught unprepared yesterday when analog transmissions stopped. Job One in the coming days and weeks is to help restore service to those consumers who may still be experiencing difficulties."

Some stations, including Richmond, Virginia's WRIC, were permitted to operate their analog signals after the switchover for a little more than just a "nightlight" -- a placard showing what number to call for information. The ABC affiliate kept viewers informed with a continuously running 18-minute video clip explaining the transition to newcomers. As a result, its station manager told the local newspaper, its own call center incidents were kept to a minimum.

Major station owner LIN Broadcasting reported it was only receiving 100 calls per day, per station.