ATMC to transition from analog to digital broadcast

In less than four months, Brunswick County will transition from analog to digital broadcast TV service. Residents with ATMC Cable will not be affected by this transition.

The Federal Communications Commission recently announced the Wilmington television market, which includes Brunswick County, was selected as the digital television (DTV) transition test market for the impending nationwide transition from analog to digital television service. The Wilmington market will make the transition five months earlier than the FCC mandated date of Feb.17, 2009, and cease broadcast of analog signals on Sept 8.

In anticipation of the DTV transition, ATMC has equipped itself with the technology needed to receive these digital television signals and convert them to analog for distribution to ATMC cable television customers. This means customers with television sets connected to ATMC cable television service will continue to receive all of their local TV signals with no interruption. ATMC cable television customers will not need to purchase a new digital television or a digital converter box to continue receiving a signal. The television sets customers have in use today will continue to work without any changes.

“We’ve known about the DTV transition for some time, so we’ve done everything we need to do to make sure this transition is seamless and interruption-free for our cable TV customers,” commented Allen Russ, ATMC CEO/general manager. “Our cable TV customers can rest easy knowing they don’t need to do anything to continue receiving TV service.”

The DTV transition should only impact households not connected to a cable or satellite TV service. Households that use an antenna to receive over-the-air analog TV signals must make the transition to digital service or they will lose their television signals. To make this transition they have three options: subscribe to a cable or satellite TV service, replace their analog televisions with new digital televisions with a built-in digital tuner or purchase digital converter boxes to use with each of their analog TVs. According to Neilsen Media Research, just 7.4 percent of households in the Wilmington television market rely exclusively on over-the-air broadcast TV.

For more information about the DTV transition, visit the following Web sites: www.dtvtransition.org, www.dtv.gov or www.dtvanswers.com. To sign-up for the federal government’s TV Converter Box Coupon Program, log-on to www.dtv2009.gov or call (888) DTV-2009.