By PETER SVENSSON
AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- More than 2 million households are in danger of seeing their major broadcast TV channels disappear into a fuzz of static when analog service ends Friday, according to surveys.
That is nearly half the number that were unready in February, when most analog TV broadcasts were originally scheduled to be turned off. The shutdown was delayed for four months at the behest of the Obama administration.
Research firm SmithGeiger LLC said Thursday that about 2.2 million households were still unprepared around the beginning of June. Sponsored by the National Association of Broadcasters, it surveyed 948 households that relied on antennas and found that 1 in 8 had not connected a digital TV or digital converter box.
Nielsen Co., which measures TV ratings with the help of a wide panel of households, put the number of unready homes at 2.8 million, or 2.5 percent of the total television market, as of Sunday. In February, the number was 5.8 million.
Nielsen said minority households are less likely to be prepared, as are households consisting of people under age 35. Households with people older than 55 are far more likely to be prepared than the average.
The Albuquerque-Santa Fe area continues to be the nation's least ready market in the Nielsen survey, with 7.6 percent of TV households still unprepared.
Nielsen does not survey Puerto Rico, which is also believed to have many unready households. Both the Caribbean island and New Mexico have relatively few households connected to cable.
Households that have all their sets connected to cable or satellite service are unaffected by the analog broadcast shutdown.
Both the Nielsen and SmithGeiger surveys count households as unprepared even if they have taken some steps toward getting digital signals, like ordering a converter box coupon.
Stations will start cutting their analog signals Friday morning, but many will wait until the evening. Nearly half of all U.S. stations have already ended analog transmissions, though most big-city stations have held off until Friday.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
WCPO Channel 9 will turn off our analog signal first, at 12:01 a.m. Friday. WKRC Channel 12 turns their analog signal off at 2 a.m., 19 WXIX will be follow at 6 a.m. and WLWT Channel 5 switches last at 11:59 p.m.
If you have problems, Channel 9 will be on your side with a 42 hour call in phone bank that runs from Friday morning until 6:30 p.m. Saturday. That number will be made available Friday morning.
In the meantime, if you have questions, call 1(800)225-5322.
The Associated Press contributed to this story
