The 80 or so TV stations that were required to have picked their DTV channel allotments by the end of today will get an extra week.
The Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers had asked for an extra three weeks, saying that the 20 days since the FCC put out the public notice on the deadline for the second round of DTV elections was not enough time, "particularly in markets with multiple and possibly competing demands and interests."
On Oct. 4, the FCC announced 1,713 tentative channel designations from the first round of channel elections, saying the second-round elections were due by Oct. 24.
The FCC said it would only give the stations until Oct. 31. "For some licensees, the engineering process of electing a channel in the second round will be complex," it said. "We note, however, that less than 100 licensees are participating in the second round, a small fraction of the number which participated in the first round of elections."
