Digital Television in The United States - Transition From Analog To Digital OTA Broadcasts in 2009

Transition From Analog To Digital OTA Broadcasts in 2009

It is estimated that as of April 2007, 28% of American households had an HDTV set, a total of 35 million sets, and that 86% of owners were highly satisfied with the HDTV programming Some extimate that by the end of 2010, 59% of American TVs will be HDTVs. All TV stations currently broadcast in both digital and analog and major networks broadcast in HD in most markets.

While many in the industry wanted a flexible or delayed deadline, the FCC forced the issue at the behest of Congress. Congress wanted to reclaim the spectrum for emergency services. They also wanted to auction off the 76-88 MHz frequencies (channels 5 and 6)and old analog channels 60 to 69, and channels 52 to 59 by mandating DTV tuners be phased in to all new TV sets, beginning with the largest. Many dates were proposed, but Congress finally fixed February 17, 2009 (later extending it until June 12, 2009), in law as the maximum end date for analog television authorizations. Because this date comes after the NCAA's Bowl Championship Series and the NFL's Super Bowl XLIII, there will be less of a chance of an acute hardware shortage from people waiting until the last minute to purchase an ATSC tuner than there would have been with a January 1 cutoff. The original deadline of January 1, 2006 was abolished when it was realized that TV stations and customers would not be able to meet the earlier deadline.

In March 2008, the FCC requested public comment on turning the bandwidth currently occupied by analog television channels 5 and 6 (76–88 MHz) over to extending the FM broadcast band when the digital television transition was to be completed in February 2009 (ultimately delayed to June 2009). This proposed allocation would effectively assign frequencies corresponding to the existing Japanese FM radio service (which begins at 76 MHz) for use as an extension to the existing North American FM broadcast band.

Ultimately, VHF Channels 5 and 6 were retained for digital broadcast television use after the transition, though the FCC had continued researching the possibility of re-allocating the two channels to an expanded FM band.

On August 22, 2011, the United States' Federal Communications Commission announced a freeze on all future applications for broadcast stations requesting to use channel 51, to prevent adjacent-channel interference to the A-Block of the 700 MHz band. Later that year (on December 16, 2011), Industry Canada and the CRTC followed suit in placing a moratorium on future television stations using Channel 51 for broadcast use, to prevent adjacent-channel interference to the A-Block of the 700 MHz band.