Bob CollinsWe’re just a few days away from the end of analog TV broadcasts or the arrival of the analog TV doorstop, depending on your point of view.
There aren’t that many Minnesota households that get over-the-air TV — about 350,000 or 17 percent of the households. People who subscribe to cable or satellite don’t have to do much. Everyone else had to buy converter boxes (or new TVs).
As of last week, Minnesotans had requested 1,314,770 coupons from the federal government for discounts on the converter boxes. Only 763,814 had been redeemed. The possibilities are endless with the math: People ordered coupons when they didn’t need them, or people are delaying buying the converter boxes, or people are cutting down on the number of TVs in the house. The coupons redeemed so far suggest two TVs per over-the-air household. Perhaps they decided they didn’t really need a TV in the linen closet.
But more than 10 percent of the homes in the nation that rely on an over-the-air signal, will stare at black screens come Friday, officials say. In one area of West Virginia, it’s a big enough problem that firefighters are pitching in.
Here’s a page of resources for the conversion. Let us know how it goes for you.
