Another digital divide

The move to digital broadcasting might seem ominous for people who rely on over-the-air broadcasts for viewing their TV shows — and if those viewers don't take certain steps, they'll be out of luck for TV watching come February.

Exactly how many people will be affected is a matter of debate. Some government and industry analysts suspect digital converter boxes will be snatched up before the change from analog to digital broadcasting. Other experts believe viewers will switch their old analog sets for Christmas.

But if the analog-to-digital change occurred right now, Salt Lake City would be affected more than most of the nation. According to a recent report, only Milwaukee would be worse off.

For Salt Lake, that second-worst ranking represents a slip down a notch from February, when the city was third-worst.

Data from the Nielsen Co. shows that 18 percent of households in the Salt Lake City market area — which actually is all of Utah and several counties in Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming — are "completely unready" for the analog-to-digital conversion that will happen Feb. 17. The figure represents households with TV sets that all get signals over the air, meaning without cable or satellite service, a digital converter box or an internal digital tuner.

Of the 56 markets in the report, only Milwaukee's 18.3 percent of "completely unready" households fared worse than Salt Lake. Hartford and New Haven, Conn., represented the "most ready" market, with only 3.1 percent of households relying entirely on free over-the-air analog broadcast signals. The national figure was 9.4 percent.

"There probably are some people who don't watch enough television to even care (about the switch)," said Anne Elliot, vice president of communications for the Nielsen Co. "But come Feb. 18, they might change their mind."

As of May, the Utah area in the Nielsen study had about 23 percent of homes that rely solely on analog broadcast signals. Nearly 40 percent of households were wired for cable, and 38 percent got TV from another source, primarily satellite. Nationally, only about 12 percent of homes use over-the-air signals, while 61.8 percent use cable and 27 percent use primarily satellite.

Elliot was unsure about factors contributing to Utah's lack of digital preparedness. The Milwaukee native said her hometown was late to receive cable service, and her parents "had perfectly good reception" from over-the-air signals. "I know every local market has unique things about it that we can't possibly know," she said.