Wilmington, N.C., ready for switch to digital TV

At noon on Monday, Wilmington's five commercial broadcast stations are scheduled to become the nation's first to permanently switch to all-digital signals, serving as a test of the government-mandated transition that other stations across the country will make in February.

"It's like landing on the moon," said Constance Henley Knox, general manager of CBS affiliate WILM. "We're making history."

The change is the biggest for over-the-air television since the advent of color 50 years ago. The more efficient signals, which many stations already are transmitting, provide a much clearer picture and allow broadcasters to offer four or more programs at the same time on new sub-channels.

But the end of analog broadcasts could leave many viewers who depend on rabbit ears and other antennas seeing nothing but static unless they upgrade their equipment. That's because older sets can't pick up the digital signals. Although most people who get TV from cable, satellite or phone companies will be unaffected, viewers who rely on antennas need a digital TV or a special converter box.

So for the last four months, the Federal Communications Commission has lavished disproportionate attention on Wilmington, the nation's 135th-largest media market with 180,000 TV-watching households, to eliminate any chance the test run will flop.

A dozen FCC staffers have spent the summer crisscrossing the region like tourists to raise public awareness. They've visited the Poplar Grove Plantation farmers market and the Pender County Blueberry Festival. They've been to the 30th anniversary party for the public library in Elizabethtown and made friends at the Mae Coffee Shop in Whiteville. FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin has visited five times to spread the word.

By all accounts the region is ready after the unprecedented FCC effort, which supplemented an aggressive publicity campaign by broadcasters. In a recent survey of Wilmington-area residents by the National Assn. of Broadcasters, 77% of respondents knew when the switch was occurring.

"I don't think I've run into anybody who doesn't know about it," Louis Pillarella, a 68-year-old engineer from Wilmington, said last week during a digital TV expo where Martin and three FCC staffers answered questions.