After some initial power issues, Beartooth NBC — KTVH channel 12 in Helena — successfully made its transition to a digital broadcast signal Monday afternoon, a few months earlier than mandated by the Federal Communications Commission.

General Manager Kathy Ernst said the station’s transmitter, atop Hogback Mountain in the Big Belts northeast of Helena, had issues with its power supply immediately after the noon changeover to digital.

“When we switched and turned off analog, we lost power,” Ernst said Monday afternoon. “(Workers) had to make some adjustments up there, and now it’s coming in.”

Viewers on cable or satellite television shouldn’t need to make any changes to their hardware or programming to be able to view the local station, Ernst said, and those having trouble should contact their service providers.

People who use antennas or “rabbit ears” with TVs without a built-in digital tuner to view channel 12 will need to hook up to a digital converter box in order to receive the new signal.

Several electronics retailers around town, including Wal-Mart, Kmart, Shopko, Hastings and Radio Shack, were sold out of the converter boxes Monday, but most expected to replenish supplies this week.

Ernst said Beartooth made the switch to digital three months before the Feb. 17 deadlines primarily because of where its transmitter is located. The new equipment had to be installed on the mountaintop last month, before seasonal roads got snowed in, and Ernst said she wasn’t comfortable with crews trying to reach the transmitter in the middle of February if issues arose around the time of the change.

Converter boxes start at around $50, with fancier versions costing more. Because other local stations haven’t yet made the conversion to digital, a box with an “analog pass-through” is needed to allow for viewing of both digital and analog signals. By the February deadline, the pass-through won’t be necessary as all channels will be digital.

The transition comes at a challenging time in the media industry, and Beartooth isn’t immune to the pain.

The station announced that it’s laying off four employees and canceling the weekend local news telecasts, which accounted for two 30-minute broadcasts on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

“We gave up weekend news because it just wouldn’t pay for itself,” Ernst said. “All of our stations have had to cut back, and the only thing I could cut was weekend news.”

She said weekend broadcasts require additional staffing beyond the team that puts together broadcasts Monday through Friday. She noted that weekend newscasts, which returned to Helena’s airwaves around four years ago, were popular with viewers but didn’t generate enough advertising revenue to remain viable.

Ernst said Channel 12 maintains a news staff of eight to produce its twice-nightly local broadcasts.

Reporter John Harrington: 447-4080 or john.harrington@helenair.com.