Wilmington, North Carolina volunteered to be the very first U.S. market to change to digital-only television broadcasting. While the rest of us have to wait until February, the lucky city’s Mayor Bill Saffo and FCC’s Michael Copps pulled a pseudo switch to mark the event. More than 69,000 coupons for 37,500 households in the Wilmington market were requested. Those who didn’t purchase the ATCS tuners will see a crawl at the bottom of their screen with a toll-free number to get with the plan.

Mayor Saffo said, “If nobody calls, it doesn’t mean there wasn’t a problem. And if a thousand people call it doesn’t mean this wasn’t a success. Because success is ultimately going to be measured by what we’ve learned and can put in place to do next February.”