The DTV transition in the U.S. takes place today, and stations are gearing up to switch over to all-digital broadcasts by the end of the day. We spoke to Shermaze Ingram, Senior Director of Media Relations for the Digital Television Transition at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) to get an update on the situation.

"So far, it's very early in the game," she notes, advising that while stations began switching over as early as 12:01 a.m. this morning, they have until 11:59 p.m. tonight to do so. What's more, roughly half of the stations have opted to conduct their switches between 6 p.m. and midnight tonight.

In all, 974 stations will be switching over, and approximately 175 of them did so in the early hours of the morning; followed by another 200 that are scheduled to switch between 6 a.m. and noon. Ingram says that 152 stations will switch between lunch time and 6 p.m.; but the majority (442) won't be touching their dials until after 6 p.m. tonight.

"We'll continue to monitor the situation," she says, "before giving a really definitive picture. But it's always a good sign when things are quiet. From what we've been hearing anecdotally thus far, things are going well."

The DTV transition was set to take place in February, but was delayed earlier this year to allow residents who would be affected to better prepare for the switchover.

DisplaySearch reported last year that 23% of U.S. citizens had at least one TV receiving programming over-the-air, and close to 40% used over-the-air signals as their only method of accessing TV. NAB conducted a poll between March 26 and April 8 where it discovered that 82% of American homes that rely on antennas to watch TV were already prepared for the transition. However, the remaining 11% who weren't ready represented a healthy 2.1 million consumers that would be losing their signals if they did not act in time.

It remains to be seen how many of those 2.1 million Americans stepped up and took the necessary steps to continue to access their TV content between April 8 and today. But most feel that the delay did indeed help in allowing consumers more time to prepare, and that any impact on citizens will be small. Indeed, NAB's April study found a 98% awareness of the DTV transition among over-the-air households; with the gap closing among African-Americans, Hispanics, and the elderly, which represented three groups that were lagging earlier on in the year.

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