More than half of Chattanooga’s local television stations will have forged ahead with their digital transition plans by Tuesday, despite the four-month extension recently granted by Congress.

“We just felt if we extended it any, people wouldn’t understand,” said Bryan Fuqua, vice president for technical services at WTCI Channel 45, the local PBS station.

At the suggestion of the Obama administration, Congress pushed back the deadline for stations to stop broadcasting analog signals and switch to digital signals from Tuesday to June 12. However, stations can switch earlier, and four of Chattanooga’s six stations will do so.

WTCI and WDEF Channel 12 (CBS) will switch Tuesday, and WFLI Channel 53 (CW) and WDSI Channel 61 (Fox) already have changed to digital.

WTVC Channel 9 (ABC) and WRCB Channel 3 (NBC) will wait until June.

Chattanooga Times – Free Press