Digital Television Transition:

GAO DTV Broadcaster Survey (GAO-08-528SP, April 2008), an E-supplement to GAO-08-510

GAO-08-528SP, Apr 30, 2008

Contact:

Mark L. Goldstein
(202) 512-3000
contact@gao.gov

 

Office of Public Affairs
(202) 512-4800
youngc1@gao.gov

This is an E-supplement to GAO-08-510 which was released April 30, 2008. The Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 requires all full-power television stations in the United States to cease analog broadcasting by February 17, 2009. Prior to the transition date, broadcasters must take a series of steps to begin transmitting a digital signal. To determine broadcasters' readiness for the transition date, we conducted a Web-based survey of full-power licensed broadcasters. We surveyed 1,682 broadcasters from the Federal Communications Commission's database of full-power broadcasters of which 66.7 percent responded. This e-supplement lists questions and results from the survey. Some survey questions were not applicable to all respondents. As such, the survey results are presented based on the number or respondents for a given question and do not represent overall percentages for all survey respondents. A more detailed discussion of our scope and methodology is contained in our report "Digital Television Transition: Majority of Broadcasters Are Prepared for the DTV Transition, but Some Technical and Coordination Issues Remain." GAO-08-510(Washington, D.C.: April 30, 2008). We administered the survey from December 2007 through February 2008 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.