FCC Gets 800,000 Consumer Calls on Digital TV Transition

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 15, 2009 - 8:01am.

Los Angeles - The transition to digital television broadcasting went off with relatively few problems, although the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received nearly 800,000 calls from consumers last week with questions related to the transition, the Associated Press reported. The FCC's customer service phone banks received over 300,000 on Friday, the day of the switch, with about one-third of these requesting converter box coupons; the FCC received another more than 102,000 calls on Saturday.

Average wait time per caller was 4.6 minutes.

The FCC had projected it would receive between 600,000 and 3 million phone calls from consumers, and plans to maintain its call centers for consumers at least through June.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) polled stations and found they received an average of 130 calls each, with rescanning and converter box set-up the top issues reported.

Nielsen's final estimate last week before the switchover found some 2 million U.S. households still unprepared for the transition.

http://snipurl.com/k6akq (AP)