WASHINGTON (Reuters) – About 40 percent of the nation’s hundreds of TV stations will be broadcasting completely in digital signals next week, even after regulators delayed a mandatory nationwide switch to “DTV” by months.
The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday said 681 of the nearly 1,800 television broadcast stations will have already stopped broadcasting in older, analog signals, or will by next week.
The U.S. House of Representatives last week voted to delay the mandatory change by four months — to June 12 from February 17. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill into law shortly.
The switch is intended to free up spectrum for public safety and provide better television viewing.
But the delayed bill gave television stations, which say they’ve spent millions of dollars preparing and educating viewers for the switch-over, the option to transition to all digital on the original date, next Tuesday.
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