Cox Las Vegas: Ready To Roll For DTV
Two Sinclair-Owned Stations Plan to Cut Over On Original Feb. 17 Deadline
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 2/11/2009 6:02:11 PM
Cox Las Vegas is "100% ready" for the digital TV transition, and would be even if all nine local full-power stations were cutting over on Feb. 17, said Steve Schorr, vice president of public and government affairs.
As it stands now, just two Vegas stations -- KVCW (a CW affiliate) and KVMY (MyTV), both owned by Sinclair Broadcasting -- want to pull the analog plug next Tuesday, as originally planned.
No matter what happens, Schorr said, Cox Las Vegas is ready for DTV because it already receives and retransmits all nine stations digitally to its approximately 432,000 video subscribers. Cox completed the process of receiving digital signals from full-power stations in January, Schorr said.
"For us as a company, the change to June 12 is not an issue," he said.
President Obama Wednesday signed into law a bill that ostensibly gives TV stations the option of continuing to broadcast in analog until June 12.
In the past week, 491 stations nationwide told the Federal Communications Commission they plan to cut over Feb. 17 rather than waiting, in addition to 190 stations that already terminated analog or have notified the FCC of their intention to do so. However, the agency may, at its discretion, deny those stations' requests if it deems it in the public interest to have analog TV continue in a given market.
In Las Vegas, seven of the nine full-power stations have agreed to continue broadcasting in analog until June 12: KVBC (NBC), KVVU (FOX), KLAS (CBS), KLVX (PBS), KTNV (ABC), KINC (Univision) and KBLR (Telemundo).
Schorr said consumer confusion will be the biggest issue broadcasters, and to a lesser extent cable operators, will be dealing with. "Especially in a market when you have two stations announcing they're ending analog television, and the other stations will be maintaining it," he noted.
Cox Las Vegas established a 27-employee DTV committee about a year ago, comprising field technicians, customer-care managers, marketing personnel and other staff to prepare for the change.
"We have seen this all along as a major situation that we have to deal with, and that's why we established this DTV committee specifically for whatever took place," Schorr said.
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