89 Percent of Wilmington-Area Residents Aware of DTV Transition
June 5, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC — Consumer awareness of the transition to digital television (DTV) in the Wilmington, North Carolina market continues to increase, as television viewers there prepare for the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) analog shut-off experiment on September 8, 2008, five months ahead of the nation's transition date.
A new survey of 501 television households in the Wilmington, North Carolina designated market area (DMA) shows that 89 percent of TV households in the DMA report having "seen, read or heard" about the television industry's switch to digital broadcasting. The survey was conducted by Smith Geiger Research and commissioned by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB).
"Television viewers in Wilmington are learning quickly about the DTV transition," said Jonathan Collegio, NAB vice president of digital television. "But there is significant confusion about the date of the transition." In the survey, twenty-six percent of viewers incorrectly identified February 17, 2009 as the transition date, while 18 percent correctly identified September 8, 2008 as the date when Wilmington television stations go exclusively digital. "This is likely due in part to the fact that the new date for the Wilmington market was just recently announced," Collegio said.
The survey also identifies another challenge in the market: Because 66 percent of households in the Wilmington DMA watch television programming that originates outside the market, those viewers will see public service announcements promoting a digital transition date different from their own.
"Wilmington viewers watching programming originating in Myrtle Beach, Raleigh or Greenville may see public service announcements promoting a transition date that applies nationally—but not to Wilmington," said Collegio. "We should anticipate that a number of folks there may not upgrade for this reason, as they continue receiving out-of-market television channels. Controlling this factor appears to be one of the biggest challenges of the Wilmington experiment."
In May, the FCC announced that Wilmington would be the first market in the country to go exclusively digital in an experiment scheduled for September 8, 2008. Four commercial television stations in Wilmington are participating in the experiment, but the public television station opted out, citing the importance of continued analog broadcasting during a possible weather emergency.
The rest of the nation's full-power television stations are required by law to begin broadcasting exclusively in digital by February 17, 2009.
After the FCC announced the experiment, NAB met with all of the full-power stations in the market, as well as public television station WUNC-TV, to discuss how to best coordinate efforts during the experiment. NAB will work with stations on a variety of initiatives, which include scheduling more DTV Speakers Bureau events in Wilmington, sending NAB's DTV Road Show to Wilmington in August and September and producing Wilmington versions of NAB's DTV Action spots.
Efforts also include coordinating with local and national electronics retailers, as well as property management companies overseeing thousands of vacation homes and rental properties in Wilmington, many of which will need to upgrade by September.
