FCC targets TV stations planning to stick to Feb. 17 schedule

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Federal Communications Commission has told 123 TV stations that were planning to stick to the Feb. 17 cutoff date for analog broadcasts that they will have to justify not extending their transmissions for four months.

Affected stations are in or near Santa Barbara and Bakersfield, Calif., Dayton, Ohio; Eugene, Ore.; La Crosse and Madison, Wis.; Billings, Mon.; Kearney and Lincoln, Neb.; Sioux City, Iowa; Topeka and Wichita, Kan.; Waco, Texas; Mobile, Ala.; Pensacola, Fla.; and Providence, R.I., among others.

These are areas where all of the major-network stations have applied to turn off their signals on Feb. 17, the commission said in a statement late Wednesday.

In Nebraska, the FCC asked the three Lincoln stations affiliated with the major networks -- KLKN (ABC), KOLN (CBS), KSNB-TV (Fox) -- to respond.

A Kearney, Neb.-based ABC station, KHGI-TV, also must justify its plans to switch its main tower and two translator stations -- KWNB-TV in Hayes Center and KSNB-TV in Superior -- over to digital on Tuesday.

Full-power TV stations have been planning for years to turn off analog signals on Feb. 17 to make room for more efficient digital broadcasting, two-way wireless data services and emergency communications.

But as the deadline loomed, funding ran out for the program that subsidized digital TV converter boxes for older sets. Concerned that households were not sufficiently prepared to tune in to digital broadcasts, Congress passed a bill giving stations the option of waiting until June 12 to turn off. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law this week.

That sent stations scrambling to figure out when to turn off, and 491 of the country's 1,796 stations applied to the FCC to keep the Feb. 17 date, partly thwarting the intent of the bill.

The FCC has asked the targeted stations to certify by Friday that at least one station in the market will continue to broadcast information about the transition and local news in analog for at least two months. They will also have to, individually or together with other stations, operate call centers and walk-in centers to help viewers tune in to the digital transmissions.

The commission will waive these requirements for stations that have other strong reasons to end analog broadcasts, like the loss of their antenna site.