Thousands of Tampa Bay homes could be without TV Friday – St. Louis Business Journal:

percent of households in the Tampa Bay area will go Although that represents morethan 28,000 householdx in the region, it’s still well ahead of the national average of 2.5 percent. That meane 2.8 million households could be withouy television signal by the weekenrd unless they purchase digitakltelevision sets, connect to cable or or purchase a converter box, according to The digital transition was supposec to happen in February, but federapl officials delayed that move for three monthxs after millions of homes would lose During those three months the numbefr of homes completely unready for the transitionh was cut in half from 5.8 million.
“Given the importancee that television plays inthe day-to-day life of most we expect that most of the remainingv unready homes will take the necessary steps to get readg once the stations make the finapl switch to digital transmission,” said Sara Erichson, president of media clienty services for Nielsen, in a release. Congress created the digitalp switch in 2005 as a way to free up analogy spectrum for cellular phone companies and others that couls use signal that has been in use by televisionn stationsfor decades. Nielsej based its data on its National People Meter panel as well as locaometered panels.
The Tampa-Sarasota television market also cut its numbet of unready homes in halffrom 3.28 percent in Februarty to 1.55 percent in June. However, much of that drop happeneds through April. In Florida, the Fort Myers-Naples market has the best percentage of prepared households with less than 1 percent completely unready for thedigital transition, representing fewer than 5,0009 homes. The Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne market has 1.45 percent of its householdxs completely unready, representing more than 21,200 The biggest problem area statewide remainsin Miami-Fort Lauderdale where 2.81 percent, or 43,468 homes, are completely unready for the digitalk transition on Friday.
Nationwide, Albuquerque-Santa Fe has the worstf percentage of unready householdsat 7.58 percent. Los Angelese has the most number ofhouseholdd unready, standing currently at 252,180.
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