News From All Over

First, a couple of updates. The "truly huge number" I was expecting from the main FCC call center in fact turned out to be pretty big (317,450) but actually only about twice as big as the previous day's record (based on reports as of 2 PM, I had expected it to be three times as big or greater).

One thing I left off the "signoffs" post was the most impressive production of them all, yet not tied to any particular station. I'm talking about Univision's half-hour DTV countdown special from 11:30 to midnight from Times Square. This featured a Spanish-language countdown screen on the same building that counts down New Year's Eve, plus extensive reports on DTV mixed in with some of their regular news. I'm going to save this one in hopes that someday I'll know enough Spanish to translate it for myself.

As far as the rest of the news goes, rather than trying to weave a narrative around many overlapping accounts, I'm just going to give you a list of stories I haven't used yet from Friday and Saturday. Here it is:

A story on businesses that will benefit from the transition.

A report of the first NYC stations to go off the air Friday.

What happened when Raycom's 44 stations left the air.

Various Friday reactions, covered by the New York Times and Broadcasting & Cable.

FCC Reaction.

NAB comments about call volume to stations (as of 8 PM)

Saturday overviews from the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN and CNET.

A TVNEWSDAY editorial commending broadcasters and government on a job well done.

Another New York Times story covering the author's efforts to get better reception.

And that's how things went. My next post will deal with the unfinished work of the transition (restoring lost reception, et al) and talk about the kinds of stories I'll still be looking to tell here. That could be this weekend, but more likely sometime later.