This concludes our broadcast way.
The last reason I had for keeping cable went away, but that was a while ago. For how little I watch(ed) the expense was not justifiable (Jay watch{ed,es} even less) so a few days I ago I finally canceled the cable service.
Out of curiosity I set up a pair of rabbit ears and saw if anything had changed. Nothing had. The only signal was from channel 12 in Mankato and not very strong at that. Color, but snowy.
I do have a digital converter, for what it's worth. Right now, that isn't much. With just the rabbit ears channel 12 doesn't show at all and a box appears on the screen complaining either 'No Program' or 'Weak Signal' but shows nothing. Yep, that's digital. If you don't get it all, you get nothing.
I did make a point of watching when the final cutover happened. Channel 12 (KEYC) did it about 12:20 PM, during their noon news show. The newsreader announced that the analog signal would be ceasing in a moment and that folks might need to add the digital channel or have their converter re-scan, and then went on to the next story. A bit later the NTSC signal just disappeared and left things with the typical analog "snow" of the absence of signal.
It was sort of disappointing. Not that it happened, as that was known for some time. But there was nothing but a simple read announcement when it happened. No countdown or anything. I thought it would have neat if they had announced it as this post is titled, played the National Anthem, gone to a test pattern for a few seconds (maybe with a numeric countdown also shown) and then gone off-air. Ah well.
I suppose eventually I might set up a proper antenna (channel 12 is 204-210 MHz, so a little three-element beam shouldn't be a big deal.) and at least get channel 12 again. Though considering how much broadcast TV I've watched of late, I'm in no great hurry. I have tapes and DVDs. Radio (NPR/MPR) seems to cover news better and video can be had on the net.