Congress Prepares To Push Back Digital TV Deadline
Congress may soon help the 1.76 million consumers anxiously waiting for their $40 digital TV converter coupons. According to Congress Daily, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) is drafting legislation to push back the February 17 digital television transition deadline as requested last week by both Consumers Union and the incoming Obama Administration.
As the Senate prepares to push back the deadline, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is trying to clear the coupon backlog by "tweaking accounting rules," presumably to make it look like the Commerce Department has spent less than the $1.34 billion it was given. We guess there isn't much interest in actually providing more funds to the program, so why not pull a Wall Street-style accounting caper to gin-up some extra cash?
The transition to digital has been woefully underfunded from the start. We've spent less than $10 million on public education, while England, five times smaller than Alaska, spent close to $400 million on their transition. Unless Congress acts fast, expect your grandparents to call on February 17 asking what happened to all their stories.
Rockefeller Drafting Legislation To Postpone DTV Switch [Congress Daily]
PREVIOUSLY: Consumers Union Asks Congress To Delay Digital Broadcast TV Switch
(Photo: Tubes.)
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Lame. Bring it on. We shouldn't be paying for coupons anyway. Get with the times, suck it up, and buy a converter box on your own.
Will Calculon's evil twin brother ever walk again?
...On the next _All My Circuits_.
Regarding the "tweaking" of the accounting rules...who are they trying to fool/impress with this? The Chinese?
We've spent less than $10 million on public education, while England, five times smaller than Alaska, spent close to $400 million on their transition
9/10 of the commercials I see for the DTV transition are done by local affiliates and other for-profit companies who don't want the viewers to miss out on programming (advertising). I presume England did theirs mainly through a governmental channel, since adverts are not nearly as prevalent a part of their broadcast model. Just a hypothesis.
Wasn't the DTV transition pushed back before? I could have sworn that I heard news like this before where in Congress decided to push this back.
So if this does happen(again), what will happen to the broadband spectrum that Verizon and other ISPs have bought during that auction last year? Do they get to pay a reduced rate for delivery of their "purchase"? Oh wait, this is Congress...expect a 5% increase in late payments being delivered to the ISPs.
Oy, just flip the switch already and let order come out of the chaos!
Woefully underfunded? Oh heck let's just toss some of the bailout money at it. I mean being able to watch television is now a 'right' isn't it? And money is an unlimited resource apparently too correct? Shouldn't have received dollar one from taxpayer funds. Congress pushed out the date once already (even though this issue shouldn't be decided by the federal government). Buy your own box or deal with it. Try reading a book....
this is ridiculous. ok, so some people in february wont have tv. its not like they are going to have FOOD or CLOTHING or SHELTER taken away from them. they wont be able to have their afternoon "stories." OH NOES!
Delaying this is a huge mistake, it will only add to the confusion.
Even without a coupon the converters only cost $50. We can't molly-coddle this ridiculously exaggerated group of people who haven't prepared.
This is interesting - two of the affiliates in my area are going to shut off their analog signals early.
No. I am so sick of seeing damn scrolls and ads and misleading information from local affiliates suggesting people need a new TV. No. Just stop it. I'm sick of it, and, as others have said, TV isn't a constitutional right It's not life, liberty and the pursuit of Mad Men.
@lifestar: Exactly, and if they do delay it again, whats going to get people motivated to get their new converter boxes? The deadline will just keep getting pushed back. Until Analog is shut down, most places won't turn up their digital equipment to full power. So until the switch, digital in many cases looks worse. (not to mention, all those TV Stations are now going to have to maintain duplicate equipment, and make sure they have all their FCC broadcast licensing in order for much longer, meaning my local stations will suffer financially)
Funny, I don't remember coupons from when they went from radio broadcasts to television broadcasts. Of course I wasn't alive then, but the point is...if you are using outdated technology, sometimes you have to upgrade. And it isn't the GOVERNMENT'S responsibility to provide you with a tv to watch.
I, for one, look forward to hanging up on my grandparents on February 17.
And they can now put off getting their converter until a week before the new deadline... but not without more complaining about how the $9 converter makes it impossible for them to pay their mortgage.
Yes, $49 converter with $40 coupon.
Yes America, Obama for change - backwards.
While we are at it, lets mandate nationwide dial-up internet.
I still don't understand why there was a 3 month expiration date on the coupons. And if they HAD to have an expiration date, the coupons from the very start should've been dated 3 months AFTER the transition date. People are lazy and like to do things at the last minute. Well not me, because I signed up as soon as the coupons were available & then went out and purchased my 2 converters (even though we have cable). As a "just in case."
NO DELAY - Just get it over with. The coupons have been available for like a year if you needed them.
@astraelraen: Newsflash: We have been heading backwards for a long time and throwing rediculolous amounts of money so people can see American Idol with a 100% clear picture only makes things worse. There are more important things going on, eg. the imploding economy to worry about new technology.
Ah, statistics... how misleading they can be. The point is okay, that the US has spent less on digital-transition education than has the UK. It's less indicative to say that the UK is "five times smaller than Alaska" when it has about 91 times the population of Alaska. It's not like there's some door-to-door cost of educating people via TV broadcast, print media and perhaps direct mail, the geographic size is less important than the number of people one needs to reach.
@Ash78:
I'd tend to agree with you there. It's a difference between public and commercial broadcasting. I'd wonder how much was spent privately through US broadcasters on promotion.
I'm on the fence about whether we should switch or allow it to be pushed back. I was looking forward to getting a nice, big spare TV for the Wii and hitting garage sales this spring.
Maybe the solution is to offer a limited liscense to a couple analog broadcasters to broadcast nothing but ads for the DTV switch. Only partly joking.
@lalaland13: The crawls are really annoying. Oddly the city owned station in New York WNYE has the worst one which seems to be programmed to come on at the :15s and :45s regardless of what is on air and if it is blocking anything. It lasts around two minutes or so.
My parents are 70 - they have digital cable with DVR. My hubby's grandparents are in their late 80's and have DirecTV. My parents have already told me that their friends all have cable. Who are all these enraged old people who are gonna miss these stories? Evidently, nobody I know.
@astraelraen: Well, Obama does want change, he never said WHAT would change, so I guess EVERYTHING gets a change, even what's working.
NO NO NO NO NO!
Anyone who hasn't figured out that they need to do something, either via the incessant PSA's, NAB 'infomercials', word of mouth or otherwise isn't going figure out because it gets delayed, if anything, they'll think they're ready to go, since nothing happened on the 18th.
I'm sure once they lose their TV they'll realize, and there's also the provision of the 'Nightlight' program the FCC authorized in most markets to allow some stations to leave their analog transmitters on with a slate informing viewers of the changes, and passing on emergency info if there's an emergency.
The stations have had to pay the power on two transmitters long enough, and they've already scheduled all the last-minute changes that have to be made. Sweeps has been moved back, and vacations have been moved. It's too late.
@coan_net: I voted for Obama, but this is probably the real first objection I have from the soon-to-be administration. It's not like people NEED TV. As Walt Disney said it, "Keep Moving Forward".
Maybe instead of a coupon, they should be offering a rebate. That way, people can just get their boxes now and apply for their rebate. Then, they could go ahead and move forward on the transition and not worry about the people who haven't gotten their coupon yet.
Either do it now or do it the day of the switchover when millions of poor people have no TV and start an anti-discrimination march on Washington and have Jesse Jackson in the Oval Office getting President Obama to issue an executive order restoring TV. One way or the other it's going to be delayed. People just don't know what this means in plain English outside of technology circles.
@QuantumRiff: Yes, now that I've FINALLY gone ahead and switched, I'm ready for them to shut down analog so I can have pretty pretty full-strength digital. And I feel like I've been the most procrastinatory person in the entire country about this whole digital thing, so I don't think they get to keep stalling!
It actually gets worse. A lot of people bought "digital TV" antennas that are UHF only. When analog TV goes dark, the stations are going to reshuffle onto new channels. Some of them will switch to VHF, and people who have UHF-only antennas won't be able to receive them. Additionally, everyone will have to have their TV or converter box rescan for the new channel assignments. This hasn't been well-publicized.
Can we drop the disingenuous comparison between Alaska and England? Alaska's geographically big, but that has no relevance to this discussion.
@downwithmonstercable: that's what I'm saying... boohoo, no coupon. if you wanna watch tv pony up the $40 and buy the damn box yourself.
Heck, I thought it was cool that my primary screen (42" LCD) doesn't even have tuners. I guess I'm not the target market for a DTV converter box though...
Regarding the coupon shortage....
They should let people just pay for the converter themselves and file it on their tax returns. A win-win for all....lowers your net income by $40 and no printing costs are incurred.
Wow....that was easy!
Ughh I just want to be updated so I can stop viewing that notice on the screen every 15 minutes while I try to watch a program.
@downwithmonstercable: The government is making billions from the analog spectrum sales, the least they can do is subsidize the converter boxes with a fraction of the proceeds.
@corinthos:
Oh God, me too. All the bugs and scrolls and dancing graphics advertising what channel I'm on or what show is coming up in a week are bad enough. They take up half the screen.
I know what frigging channel I'm on, thanks.
@JGKojak: They actually did already allow for something like a 2-week extension so the broadcasters could broadcast PSA's on the transition to those people left behind.
Groan. Can't wait to go through all of this again in 2012, when the cable companies aren't required to provide the analog translation for free anymore. Then all the people who were patiently told that you didn't have to worry about anything if you have cable will suddenly wake up and realize it's FINALLY time to do something about having your own converter or television with a digital tuner. So many people have cable now that this will just lull the masses into a false sense of security. Then whammo. Flash forward to 2012 and suddenly a zillion people will be saying, "But you told me if I had cable I wouldn't need to do anything!" Plan ahead people. Unless you plan to have a cable box for every one of your analog televisions, just go ahead and replace them by 2012.
@Cogito Ergo Bibo: Most cable networks are encrypting their digital channels, so whether you have a digital TV or not, you'll still need a cable box.
This just buys me more time to turn my entire garage attic into a giant OTA antenna.
@CaptZ: The main problem I can see with that is if you make little enough money to care about $40, you probably make far too little for itemizing your deductions to make sense.
We actually decided to switch off our cable and go only with OTA broadcasting...Still waiting on our coupon. Until then we are sticking with basic cable.