The Federal Communications Commission announced over the weekend that the original list of 368 stations approved to transition before June 12 had grown to 421. That came after a review of local markets that worked out an agreement to keep some stations in analog in order for viewers to have access to emergency broadcasts and news.

Feb. 17 was the original deadline for stations nationwide to switch, but the Federal Communications Commission agreed to move the deadline to June 12 because funding ran out for coupons to subsidize TV converter boxes. Congress worried that viewers wouldn't be ready and delayed the deadline, but the FCC allowed some stations to keep the February 17 date.

The coupon problem was a major reason cited by lawmakers and Obama in backing the digital transition delay, which has been years in planning.
In checking the Web sites of some of the stations today, the DTV transition countdown clock, which was originally supposed zero Tuesday evening, was already showing triple “goose eggs.” One of these was WSAZ-TV, the NBC affiliate in Huntington, W.Va. Instead, it proclaimed “No More Analog Transmission!” A banner message read, “IMPORTANT DTV NOTE: WSAZ made the transition to digital TV on Monday, 2/16.” In other words, things are beginning to move in this direction.

However the networks own only about 100 of the 1,800 or so broadcast television stations in the United States, according to an industry group, and 421 already will have stopped broadcasting in analog signals, or will by next week, the Federal Communications Commission said Monday.

Among stations that are switching by the original February 17 date and under an "enhanced analog nightlight" program, at least one of the top-four affiliates in a given market must keep at least one analog signal on the air to provide programming that includes, at a minimum, local news and emergency information.