700,000 callers phone hot line for help with digital-TV switch

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nearly 700,000 calls were received by a federal hot line this week from people confused about the nationwide move on Friday to drop analog TV signals and broadcast only in digital.

The Federal Communications Commission said that about 317,450 calls went into the help line, (888) CALL-FCC, on Friday alone, the day analog signals were cut off.

That’s far below the 600,000 to 3 million callers that the FCC expected in early March would call on transition day.

The move to all-digital was delayed from Feb. 17, and ramped-up efforts at spreading the word are credited with roughly halving the number of unprepared households since then. Nielsen Co. put the number of unready homes at 2.8 million, or 2.5 percent of the total television market, as of last Sunday.

FCC Acting Chairman Michael Copps said Saturday that if it were baseball, the digital transition is now closer to home plate.

“We’re safe on third right now,” he said. He added that thousands of FCC staff would continue to answer phones and help people whose TVs no longer work properly, at least through June.

“We all need a bit of patience and perseverance,” he said. “This is a momentous change, and it’ll take time to get it right.”

Dozens of mostly Hispanic TV watchers visited and called the Mercy Center, a community center in the Bronx, N.Y., to get more help. A staff of three has been on hand seven days a week for the last month.

“Up to now, it’s been people wanting the equipment,” said Judith Criado, the director of education at the center. “Today, everyone who has called has the equipment but they just don’t know how to actually see the channels.”