Mark Wooldridge said:
I would have figured with the analog switchoff that there would have been at least some farewell message broadcast at the end of regular programming. I grew up in the UK and I've been used to switchovers when the local ITV franchise changed hands.
Someone else on this board posted a message that one local station in Madison, WI did do a nice shutdown piece - the national anthem followed by the engineer hitting the "off" switch - I watched that bit. But here in GSO, the stations that switched went straight to nitelite mode. No fanfare, no pomp or circumstance... it was just end of one program and into the new service.
Maybe the proper switchoff will have more fanfare by the stations that actually care to serve the community.
Mark.
Understand, please, that I'm speaking here only for myself and not for any of my employers...
There is - how to put this gently? - a certain resentment on the part of some in the TV world about the way that the switchover has ended up going in the last few weeks.
Many stations had plans that were very carefully worked out for the changeover, and many of them had those plans massively disrupted at the last second by the sudden move to delay things until June. That's caused a tremendous amount of behind-the-scenes scrambling as budgets and work schedules have been adjusted and as innumerable filings have had to be made, on incredibly short notice, to the FCC.
Which is to say that by the time midnight came along tonight, a lot of people behind the scenes in the business had been running without much sleep for the last week, and were feeling a little less than celebratory about the whole event. (This is especially true of the stations that actually did sign off tonight, as many had to submit LOTS of last-second paperwork to make it happen, not to mention having to devote staffing at the last second to call centers or walk-in centers mandated by the FCC.) Do please note that this particular staffing is what the FCC (if not the denizens of this board) is looking for when it comes to "serving the community."
I know a couple of engineers who would very much love to have done something more than just throwing the switch on the remote control, but the rush of the last couple of weeks simply made it impossible.
On top of that, there's the sense that anybody still watching OTA analog at this point - again, how to put this gently? - probably isn't especially interested in TV history.
I'm hopeful that by the time June 12 comes along, we'll all have had a chance to breathe a bit and can mark the moment with a bit more ceremony.
