The trends for cable from “DTV Transition weekend” continued into the work week with no major issues on the horizon.  A wrap-up call with our industry-wide “DTV War Room” group at mid-day today found cable engineers mopping-up a few remaining challenges with broadcast station signals in a handful of markets.  By and large, cable customers weren’t being affected.  There were some isolated concerns – and we would stress “isolated” – about possible broadcast interference to the cable plant in a few places that may have resulted from changes in transmission frequencies among broadcast stations.  Cable and broadcast engineers were continuing to work together to solve those problems.  We have learned also that some broadcast stations in major markets are struggling with challenges around signal strength and contours.  That seems to be having some impact on over-the-air viewers, but not cable subscribers.

Cable industry customer care professionals reported only marginally-higher levels of consumer phone calls to cable call centers.  They said that while call volume was up on Friday and Saturday, it had begun to tail-off on Sunday and was returning to close to normal levels by mid-day Monday.

We don’t think the transition is “over” yet, probably for millions of Americans.  Broadcast stations in many markets are working now to adjust technical parameters and “ease in” to their new frequencies and digital formats.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans are still waiting to receive government discount coupons for over-the-air converter boxes – in order to retrofit their analog TV sets for over-the-air reception – so they’ll still be installing hardware, hooking up boxes, and evaluating reception of their new digital pictures for some time to come.  Likewise, some over-the air households may still reach out to cable companies, or our satellite and telephone company competitors, in order to sign up for multichannel video service…which we still think is a good option for any consumer who wants to see broadcast television on an analog set.  As an industry, we’ll need to stay vigilant as the transition winds down, to ensure that our customers and other consumers get the most from their cable service.

If there’s any lesson to be learned from the DTV Transition of 2009…it’s that preparation pays off.  It was probably helpful when the President and Congress pushed the culminating transition date from February to June, and we appreciate what the FCC did to coordinate the activities of the many disparate stakeholders in the transition.  But even before that time, we believe the quarter-of-a-billion-dollar investment the cable industry made in consumer education for cable customers starting in 2007 – paired with the billion dollars of commercial airtime that the broadcasting industry kicked in for public service advertising – raised awareness of the transition to virtually universal levels and gave consumers some clues about how to get ready.  Our industry-wide contribution of call center support for the FCC from February through April 2009 not only helped fill the gap in meeting the need for consumer response efforts; it too became a consumer education tool and helped our own companies better understand the questions on the minds of consumers as the transition played out.  And the low-cost digital basic tiers that some of our companies rolled out also have proven to be a great way to introduce over-the-air viewers to multichannel video while serving the public good by helping local broadcast stations preserve their base of viewers.

Despite any hiccups, the effort to prepare American consumers for the age of digital broadcasting is likely to be remembered as a healthy public-private partnership that brought together both collaborators and competitors in a common cause.

Reports from the FCC as well as our contacts at cable corporate and field offices indicate that the broadcasters DTV transition has been completed with a minimum of viewer disruption.  The Commission held a news conference on Saturday to say that most TV viewers weren’t affected when more than 900 full-power broadcast stations cut off their analog transmission before midnight Friday, effectively completing the long-awaited transition.  (You can read the Commission’s news release at http://www.fcc.gov/DOC-291384A1.pdf.)

Cable’s DTV “war room” operation has been under way since Thursday, featuring daily conference calls with more than 100 cable executives around the country, constant electronic communications with those executives, daily conference calls with FCC officials, and regular communications with representatives of the broadcasting and consumer electronics industries.  All of these outreach efforts turned up remarkably few problems.

Broadcast stations in a handful of markets had lost their digital signal, or were forced to reduce the power of their new digital transmission.  As we reported on Friday, this created some challenges for cable engineers in those markets who had to work hard to obtain and keep those signals up and running on cable systems.  As of the time of this writing, a very small number of broadcast stations are still having transmission problems, meaning that some of them can’t be carried by cable systems until the problems are fixed.  In all of those cases, broadcasting and cable engineers are collaborating closely to ensure continued cable carriage of the signals.  And the vast majority of issues that arose over the weekend were resolved within a matter of hours.

As far as we can tell, cable customer care has been largely unaffected by the transition as well.  A few cable call centers reported small “spikes” in call volumes this weekend at times when broadcast transmissions may have failed.  But as broadcast signals have been restored in most of those areas, call volumes have returned to normal.

We’re continuing to work with the FCC and to keep a close eye on all developments.  We’d appreciate knowing of any issues you’ve come across…or hearing any comment you might have about the course of the broadcasters’ DTV transition.

As we’ve said previously, the cable industry has spent the last few weeks gearing up for today’s culmination of the DTV transition.  And at midday Friday, the transition itself seemed relatively uneventful.  It’s an interesting day in that there’s a “rolling” transition underway, across four time zones.

If you put aside time zones and look just at “dayparts,” here are the number of stations and time of day they told the FCC they would switch off their analog signals:

• midnight to 6:00 a.m. –   186 stations
• 6 a.m. to 12 noon – 239stations
• 12 noon to 6:00 p.m. -  155 stations
• 6 p.m. to midnight – 391 stations

All things considered, the turn-off of analog seems to be going as well as could be hoped. Cable personnel in the field have reported technical issues for about 15 broadcast stations, in markets within states including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, and West Virginia.

In most of these cases, the issues involved broadcast signals temporarily going off the air – where analog has been turned off but for some reason the digital transmission has failed. We think there has been only a minimal impact on cable subscribers. In some cases, the same broadcast stations are delivering their signals to cable “headends” through a fiber line, so even if there’s a problem with over the air transmission, the station’s signal is still getting to cable subscribers. In cases in which signals have gone down, but where that fiber feed may not be available, cable customers along with over the air viewers have temporarily lost access to those broadcast signals.

Broadcast and cable engineers have been quick to pounce on those problems, however, and most of them have been resolved in a matter of hours.

We’re keeping a close eye on the situation through a contingent of dozens of cable executives at corporate and field-based locations.  Cable execs are trading email updates with an extensive list of colleagues around the country.  Those same people are jumping on conference calls once a day to compare notes.  We are talking regularly with FCC officials, both by email and conference calls.  And we’re regularly exchanging information with our counterparts at trade associations representing broadcasters and consumer electronics manufacturers.

That same regimen will be up and running through the course of the weekend as well, so we’ll continue to post on developments as they occur.  We’d be interested in knowing any of your experiences as well, so please comment away.

When the first group of 600+ over the air stations made the transition from analog to digital broadcast in February, their transition was met with relatively few, and entirely manageable complaints.

In exactly one week, the rest of the nation’s full power, OTA stations will make complete the transition, capping an effort that began many years ago.  The transition has not been without its challenges, but it represents the culmination of a lot of hard work by broadcasters, consumer electronics companies, subscription television services, and government at every level.  Cable, for its part, has contributed hundreds of millions in advertising to educate consumers on about the transition and so they will continue receiving signals next week.

We have also coordinated efforts between cable engineers and MSTV – the group representing broadcast engineers – to limit any technical problems.  That effort began over a year ago and identified issues early on that might have impacted the transition.  When the first stations moved from analog to digital in February, NCTA Science & Technology office  staffed a “war room” to give cable engineers an opportunity to report on activities in the field. We exchanged information with MSTV to address issues as they arose and in virtually all of such cases, the impact on cable carriage of the broadcast signal in question was minimal, with any problems being resolved in a matter of hours.

In addition, as Kyle McSlarrow noted Wednesday in his remarks before the FCC, cable also initially organized the DTV call center operation and contributed significant sums in cash grants to community groups to educate their constituents or assist them.  In addition, we placed tens of thousands of dollars in advertisements to reach at-risk groups with information.

Cable has gone beyond the call to ensure every American, not just our customers, is aware of, and is ready for transition.  We did this because we realize the transition is an important milestone for our country and we want it to be a success.  Our industry has worked tirelessly and with every level of government to guarantee that next week’s switch goes as smoothly as possible.

Should you, or anyone you know have questions or concerns about the switch, call 1-888-CALLFCC (1-888-225-5322).  The DTV hotline will be able to assist you.

In case you’ve managed to miss the news, tonight at midnight will mark the original DTV transition date, when full power over-the-air broadcast stations were supposed to shut off their analog signal and just broadcast in digital.  According to the FCC, 421 stations will do so tonight.  Since 220 stations have already made the switch, that means 641 stations – or 36% – will have met the original deadline, even though the date has been extended to June 12.

As we’ve made clear in the past, the cable industry is ready to handle the broadcast transition situation, however it plays out.  We’ve spent over $250 million so far in education efforts directed at consumers. More recently, we have participated in the creation of an integrated private/public plan for the DTV Advisor Hotline. We’ve been working closely with the broadcast networks; state broadcasting associations; the National Association of Broadcasters and its member local broadcast stations; the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing; and other stakeholders in the DTV Transition, to develop this call center plan that will leverage an interactive automated voice answering system and several thousand live operators during a period leading up to and after the digital transition.  In addition, the FCC has increased staffing at a call center housing its DTV help line. If you have questions, call 1-888-CALL-FCC for assistance.

Just to reiterate our earlier messages, if you’re already a cable customer, and all your TVs are hooked up to cable, then you most likely don’t need to do anything at all. Relax and enjoy your television.

(In the photo above [Credit: Bill Cramer/Wonderful Machine], we see Shareef Graddy and his fellow technicians at Comcast’s call center in Cherry Hill, NJ on Monday, poised to help consumers who want to make the switch from “rabbit ears.”)