On Tuesday, Aug. 19, four television stations in the Wilmington, NC, market will turn off their analog signals for one minute beginning at 7:30 p.m. to help viewers get ready for the Sept. 8, 2008, switch to digital television.
Commercial stations WWAY (ABC), WECT (NBC), WILM (CBS) and WSFX-TV (FOX) will begin broadcasting exclusively in digital on Sept. 8, 2008 — five months ahead of the national transition date of Feb. 17, 2009.
During the test on Aug. 19, viewers who are still watching analog signals will see the following message on their TV screens:
“This is a 60 second test shutoff of Wilmington’s analog television signals. If you can see this message, this television set needs to be upgraded to digital before September 8, 2008, at noon, when Wilmington commercial TV stations go all digital.”
Those who have already made the transition to digital will not be affected by the test and will see regularly scheduled programming.
