FCC going into DTV overtime

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The FCC, under the temporary leadership of Acting Chair Michael Copps, is nothing if not on task. The deadline for announcing plans for early analog shutdown was yesterday evening at 5:30PM Eastern. The FCC began sorting out full-term and early shutdown stations immediately. Meanwhile, NAB has fired out the latest stats from NTIA, showing the coupon waiting list at about 4.5M – but by now NTIA should be far along with the task of clearing that list out. Orders are slowing as well – averaging only about 58K daily over the past 30 days and about 36K daily over the past week.


RBR/TVBR observation: The entire full power television universe encompasses only 1,759 stations, and nearly 700 of them have already made their intentions known (or have executed their intentions), leaving a very manageable total of 1K and change for FCC staff to deal with. Still, we hope that Copps took pains to lobby Congress for a requisition of pizza.