Boston Aces DTV Test
With an exceptionally wired populace and strong participation in the Nightlight program, the Boston market glided through D(TV) Day with a minimal percent of the market claiming digital TV issues. Despite some hiccups with digitally equipped viewers getting a blank screen instead of Sunbeam WHDH, one broadcasting exec called Boston’s analog shutoff “the ultimate yawn.”
The #7 DMA has an estimated 28,000 households that were unprepared going into the big turnoff, and three stations keeping an analog signal alive as part of the FCC’s Nightlight campaign.
On Friday, when the changeover happened, nearly 11,000 New Yorkers called the FCC with DTV problems. In Chicago, more than 6,500 callers were logged. Only 357 calls were made from Boston, putting us in better shape than dozens of other metro areas, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Detroit, and even much smaller cities like Tampa, Columbia, S.C., Toledo, Ohio, and Jackson, Miss.
Massachusetts itself fared among the best as well, with fewer logged calls to the FCC than about 30 other states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. California and New York had the most problems statewide with 39,000 to 42,000 calls made Friday alone. In Massachusetts, 1,781 people called with DTV issues.
quincyguy commented:
What makes it bad for the station is that their website still has zero info on their error. One of their people posted on a boston radio website the lame excuse about antennas, and he maligned a specific brand. All the while, it was HIS station's error and failure to admit it!
alg2468 commented:
The Boston market results in my opinion were mixed. Most OTA DTV viewers lost WHDH ch.7 when it switched from RF42 to RF7 and transmitted at half power, but other stations had no change. On the other hand, strangely enough, many Boston market viewers started receiving adjacent (and in much of the market, overlapping) Providence, RI market stations soon after the Friday switch, that were previously difficult to receive.