KXVA: FCC Wrong About DTV Switch List

Abilene, TX station says it was wrongly included on list of stations going silent

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/5/2009 11:30:18 AM

According to the people who run KXVA Abilene, TX , the FCC needs to take it off the list of stations the commission says indicated they were not starting up their own digital signal on June 12, when they are required to have pulled the plug on primary analog service.

KXVA owner DuJuan McCoy, president and CEO, Bayou City Broadcasting, says his station has been broadcasting in digital and HD since Feb. 17, when over 700 stations made the switch per the government's original mandated hard date. The local Scripps paper, the Abilene Reporter-News, would appear to back him up, having reported on Feb. 17 about the station's switch to digital.

The FCC included the station on the list of those it indicated at a June 3 public meeting had gone "silent."

McCoy says his lawyers were contacting the FCC to ask for a retraction. FCC spokesman Mark Wigfield said that the FCC was looking into it. He also said the list was of stations "that had indicated they are going to have difficulty going on the air in digital June 12 and so have filed for extensions." He points out that some of those stations, which included ones with technical problems, might be able to resolve them.

If so, that certainly should not include KXVA, says Charles Sherrill, chief engineer and station operator. He confirms the station flash cut to digital Feb. 17 because its analog and digital channels were the same. He says he also checked the FCC filings and "can't see even a hint of anything that would have indicated we were going dark."