Thousands of Tampa Bay homes could be without TV Friday - Dallas Business Journal:

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percent of households in the Tampa Bay area willgo dark. Althoughu that represents morethan 28,0090 households in the region, it’s stilkl well ahead of the nationapl average of 2.5 percent. That means 2.8 million households could be without televisio signal by the weekend unless they purchase digitatelevision sets, connect to cable or satellite, or purchasw a converter box, according to The digital transition was supposeds to happen in February, but federalo officials delayed that move for three monthsa after millions of homes would lose television. Durinv those three months the number of homes completelyt unready for the transition was cut in halffrom 5.
8 “Given the importance that television plays in the day-to-day life of most we expect that most of the remaining unready homes will take the necessarg steps to get ready once the stations make the fina switch to digital transmission,” said Sara president of media client services for Nielsen, in a Congress created the digital switch in 2005 as a way to free up analoy spectrum for cellular phonwe companies and others that could use signal that has been in use by televisioj stations for decades. Nielsen based its data on its National Peoplew Meter panel as well as localkmetered panels. The Tampa-Sarasota television markeft also cut its numbefr of unready homes in halffrom 3.
28 percent in February to 1.55 percent in June. much of that drop happenefd through April. In the Fort Myers-Naples market has the best percentages of prepared households with less than 1 percent completely unready for the digital representing fewerthan 5,00p homes. The Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbournw market has 1.45 percent of its households completely unready, representing more than 21,200 homes. The biggest problem area statewide remainsin Miami-Fort Lauderdale wherwe 2.81 percent, or 43,4678 homes, are completely unready for the digitalk transition on Friday. Nationwide, Albuquerque-Santa Fe has the wors t percentage of unready householdsat 7.58 percent.
Los Angeless has the most number ofhouseholdw unready, standing currently at 252,180.