Analog TV Sunset Imminent, But Some Low-Powers Still Moving to DTV

Some low-power TV broadcasters were rushing to meet the FCC's midnight Tuesday sunset deadline for low-power analog broadcasts. Even so, the DTV switchover isn’t considered likely to affect many viewers, station owners and industry officials told us. “There’s really a lot of stations out there,” said Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance CEO Lee Miller. “It is hard to imagine there are still people out there with analog televisions,” said attorney Michael Couzens, who represents the National Translator Association.

“By 11:59 p.m. local time on July 13, 2021, all LPTV/translator stations must terminate all analog television operations regardless of whether their digital facilities are operational,” said a reminder public notice last week, the latest in a series since before the incentive auction. “The FCC’s been pretty gracious,” said Ark Multicasting CEO Joshua Weiss. “We’re talking twelve years,” he said, counting back to the 2009 DTV transition. “Eventually, the FCC had to say they’ve given enough time.” Weiss’s company -- which owns 300 stations -- was transitioning the last two of its analog stations late last week, he said. NAB didn’t comment Monday.

"As of last week, almost 90% of LPTV and TV Translator stations are digital, and the Bureau continues to process digital construction permit extension requests for those stations that need additional time to complete their digital facilities," emailed an FCC spokesperson. The only exceptions to the July 13 deadline for analog operations to cease are for a specific set of TV translators in Alaska (see 2106210042) and the grant of special temporary authority for Channel 6 station KBKF-LD San Jose, the FCC said (see 2106100067).

Several broadcasters said they believe larger low-power operators have been slower to flip to digital than smaller ones, mainly because they're less nimble. Cornerstone Television switched an LPTV station in Clarksburg, West Virginia, to digital about ten years ago, said CEO Steve Johnson. “We did it very shortly after it was an option.” A Cornerstone station in Sharon, Pennsylvania, ceased analog broadcasts a year and a half ago.

There have been many reasons for LPTVs to wait until the last minute, industry officials said. The outlets were among the last stations to have their channel placement settled after the incentive auction, Weiss noted. “You’re not going to turn your station to digital when you don’t know where your station is going to end up.” The long tail of the repacking meant some LPTV stations had to wait for tower crews and equipment, said Miller: “So many of them have equipment on order or are getting things built.” The number of analog TV sets has been on the decline since the full-power digital switchover, but that wasn’t a motivator for many LPTV stations because most of their viewership came via cable carriage, Miller said. “A lot of the analog stations have been sitting there running, feeding the cable system.”

To make the deadline, some LPTV broadcasters are setting up temporary transmitters to broadcast in digital until their permanent facilities can be constructed, Miller said. Some seek special temporary authority to go temporarily silent, or request extensions, he said. Miller said most LPTV broadcasters he’s aware of don’t plan to turn in their licenses. With ATSC 3.0 on the rise, LPTVs are increasingly valuable, Miller said. They aren’t required to simulcast in 1.0, so they can be “first to market” with the new standard, Weiss said.

There are likely to be rural translators, many owned by government entities, that go off-air because of the sunset, Couzens said. It isn’t clear that many viewers will be harmed because there can only be a handful viewing those analog stations, and cable viewers won’t be affected, he said. Johnson said he was contacted about a small number of customers who missed receiving Cornerstone’s Sharon station after it flipped over a year ago, and he wasn’t sure where to advise them to find converter boxes. “I don’t know where you can get any audience anywhere with an analog signal,” said retired LPTV attorney Peter Tannenwald. He said his clients that switched to digital in recent years didn’t receive any complaints from disenfranchised digital customers. “It’s hard to imagine a place where analog could still be providing useful service,” said Couzens. Though several industry officials told us they weren't sure where to find DTV converter boxes, the set-tops appear to still be readily available at online retailers, including Amazon.