What's with the crawl?

By Kirk Mason (mason@wsbt.com)

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Digital television converter box (WSBT photo)

By WSBT News1

Story Created: Feb 11, 2009 at 12:55 PM EST

Story Updated: Feb 11, 2009 at 1:39 PM EST

It's something that has been happening a lot on our television screen this week, and it has triggered quite a few e-mails and phone calls from you at home.

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FCC chairman visits WSBT to talk DTV

We're talking about that crawl running at the top of your screen every few minutes warning of the upcoming switch to digital television. In tonight's Good Question, WSBT's Kirk Mason thought he would answer why we run it where we do.

February 17 is a date we hope you have memorized by now. That is when we will cut off our analog signal, so you can only watch us digitally. This switch is mandated by the federal government, and there are many things the government requires us to do.

This week through Sunday, we must run five minutes of crawls each hour. When we say crawl, we mean the words you see running at the top of the screen warning about the upcoming switch.

Some of you have wondered why we don't run this at the bottom of the screen. The reason is we can't cover closed captioning with this warning, so our legal council is instructing us to run the crawl at the top of the screen.

WSBT will officially make the switch to digital Tuesday night at 6:30. From 6:30 until midnight that night, you will still see a warning in our old analog spot about the switch.

And we will have experts at the station taking phone calls when the switch happens, both Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, to help you with any questions you might have.

For more information, click on Ready, Set, Know: Making the switch to digital television

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