• by Wayne Friedman , September 9, 2008

The digital TV age has commenced--for one TV market, anyway.

In a ceremony featuring Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin and other dignitaries, Wilmington, N.C. Mayor Bill Saffo flipped a huge, symbolic digital switch that ended analog TV signals in that market--the first to do so.

The plan is for all North Carolina markets to move to a "soft" digital-only test as of Sept.17. The FCC--specifically FCC Commissioner Michael Copps--has been pushing TV markets to make the analog-to-digital switch early, rather than waiting for the February 2009 deadline. The FCC wants the early test to work out any bugs related to different markets' terrain and topography concerns.

Some 70% of Wilmington, N.C. residents--about 200,000 TV homes--already have access to cable. Reports are that Time Warner Cable witnessed a rush of non-cable, non-satellite TV households in the market that signed up for cable carriage.

Wilmington volunteered to be the first all-digital market, the 135th-largest Designated Market Area in the country.