Platoon An Oklahoma City

Platoon

An Oklahoma City station said it received more than 900 calls from complaining viewers in the first two days. The Providence Journal reports that the Rhode Island Broadcasters Association was swamped with so many complaints that reporters were unable to get through for more than 10 minutes at a time. Other local stations from WSTR in Cincinnati to several stations in Nebraska have reported an overwhelming Platoon of angry callers. And a 70-year-old man in Missouri actually shot his TV because he couldn t figure out how to use his digital converter box. Based on these developments, you would think that the early DTV switch was a major disaster. Despite local stations insistence on switching early to save money the official transition date is now June 12, it would appear that their viewers were not ready, as many people warned. The stations would save money by switching early because they would no longer have to transmit both analog and digital signals. Some journalists don t always report what they see. But good luck in finding that story in many of your nation s top trade and consumer publications, particularly if they are owned by companies that also own local TV stations which desperately want the switch to occur now. For instance, The Los Angeles Times, which is owned by The Tribune Company, which also owns roughly 20 local TV stations, ran a headline last week that said: Digital TV Switch Goes Smoothly in San Diego. Fears of blank TV screens and pixelated shows largely failed to materialize in San Diego on Wednesday as months of public outreach left the vast majority of viewers capable of receiving pictures via the new all-digital broadcasts, the Times wrote in a boosterish article. The Columbus Dispatch, whose ownership also owns a local TV station in Columbus, ran a headline that said: Switch to Digital TV Met With Little Fanfare. The Tampa Tribune, owned by Media General, which owns TV stations in 18 markets, published a headline stating, Digital TV Switch Doesn t Faze Viewers. And there were several other examples of newspapers owned by companies that own local TV stations printing Digital TV stories that seemed more appropriate for a collection of short fantasies. But it wasn t just the consumer press that seemed to go into the tank on this story. If you read the nation s leading TV trade publications, you would think the early switch went as smooth as silk. For instance, Multichannel News ran a headline saying, Early DTV Switch: Hardly a Hitch. The story actually included the following sentence: There appeared to be no major fallout from the discontinuation of analog by about one-quarter of the stations on the original transition hard date. Broadcasting Cable published a headline that said: FCC Says It Is Handling DTV Calls So Far. The publication also ran a story featuring a FCC commissioner praising local stations for their cooperation with the switch. And yet another B C article was published under the headline, NAB National Association of Broadcasters Says DTV Calls Aren t Flooding Switchboards. TV Week s headline published the day after the switch read: DTV Switch The story s lead sentence Platoon Initial reports from some of the 421 stations that yesterday switched to digital TV signals suggest the most dire predictions about the transition may have been overblown. To TV Week s credit, the publication has balanced that view in recent days with additional articles. So, what s happening here? Why are so many publications seemingly so eager to portray the early Digital TV switch as a huge success? It s quite simple. In the case of newspapers with ownership connections to local TV stations, they are following orders. Their corporate parents have a vested interest in creating the perception that the switch is a success, so by God, their newspapers will toe the line or else. Don t kid yourselves, folks. Newsrooms do not make decisions based solely on journalistic reasons. And in the case of the trade publications, they have an historic closeness to the National Association of Broadcasters and other industry heavyweights who want the DTV switch to be portrayed as a success. In fact, their readership is largely made up of industry officials, not average consumers who are still struggling to figure out the complexities of the DTV switch.