The DTV Coupon Program Is Running Out Of Money
Well, it seems like there are a lot of people with analog tvs that watch programming using an antenna— because the DTV coupon program says it's nearing the program's $1.34 billion funding limit.
They claim to have sent out 41 million coupons — but of course it's likely that many of them have gone to people who don't even need them. A recent study by Consumers Union showed that 41% of consumers polled think that every TV in a house must have a new converter box, even those that are already connected to cable or satellite. (They don't. REALLY.)
The Washington Post says that if the program runs out of money, consumers will be put on a waiting list until more funds become available.
If you're wondering whether or not your TV will need a converter box, click here.
If your cable company has lied to you told you that you need to get digital cable "because of the transition", click here.
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Comments:
So what happens to the coupon if you don't use it in time? I thought those funds got 'recycled' into new cards. From my experience, retailers will not touch any expired coupon with a ten foot pole.
Maybe it's possible that people are switching from cable to DTV? That's what I did, and the gubment handout helped too.
So, let's put a bunch of money into a coupon program but not enough money into educating people about the conversion, and just hope everything balances out.
I ordered 2 of them for kicks and got 2 converters to play with.. Nice thing is the component video output of the back!
There have been constant commercials and news reports about the DTV conversion for months. I don't think a lack of trying to educate is the problem. It just turns out that there are tons of people who don't understand what's going on. I know from my own family members that it can be pretty hard to make them understand about digital TV, tuners, antennas, etc.
I requested two of the coupons around a year ago before I realized that the converters wouldn't be necessary. The info was sketchy early on and I wanted to make sure that I had the coupons just in case. I have to believe a lot of people hedged their bets that way and many were never redeemed.
Just signed up got this:
IMPORTANT:
We have determined that you are eligible to participate in this program and your coupon application has been approved. However, because program funding is not currently available, you will not receive coupons unless more funding becomes available. If program funding becomes available you should receive your coupons in the mail.
Looks like they really are broke.
@EBounding: Handout? I thought the converter boxes were being paid for from money set aside when they auctioned off the frequencies opened up by the DTV transition?
Wow....looks like I got there just in time then. I ordered mine last week and it said they would be mailing them on the 16th
In other news, the FCC has decided to scrap DTV altogether and go back to black and white analog TV.
(Just Kidding!)
I suspect at least half of those coupons won't be used.
I pondered on whether or not to get a converter box for my 18 year old Sony but in the end I decided not to bother. Since I only get two DTV channels, it hardly seems worth it for a second set. Oh, that and there's pretty much nothing on broadcast TV worth watching.
Well, our two TVs are hooked up to Dish, but I still got two boxes (and two coupons) so I can use the "rabbit ears" when there is so much snow piled on the dish that it won't work -- which, of course, happens exactly on the mornings that I want to check if my kids' school is delayed or canceled.
Anybody else notice the last sentence of the WaPo article? "It's also possible that the NTIA will seek dollars from the stimulus plan to keep it going."
Man, that stimulus bill just has to do everything, doesn't it?
@KHook321: There's a "story" about it every night on the six o'clock news in Detroit. Of course, who watches TV news anymore?
Oh yeah... old people. I've been saying this as long as Consumerist has been covering the DTV switch: the people who are really going to be lost, confused, and taken advantage of are shut-in senior citizens who don't grok technology and don't have someone to explain it to them.
I've already had one phone scammer call my house telling me that my TV needs a converter "because the cable signal is changing." I bet seniors (who often end up on sleazy "sales lead lists") are getting it worse.
@KHook321: "I don't think a lack of trying to educate is the problem. It just turns out that there are tons of people who don't understand what's going on."
Obviously it's not enough, since people still don't get it. You answered your own statement.
I imagine some enterprising people are scarfing up the free converter boxes and re-selling them on e-bay or craigslist.
It' not that consumers are confused but that the coupons make it a great limited-time-only deal.
I have cable and don't "need" a box but at $25 after coupon it made sense to get one just in case I need one down the road or my cable goes out.
@Corporate_guy: Yeah, I initially requested one coupon as i was worried about the reports of them expiring before they got used, then earlier today I decided I'd better order my second coupon and got the same message you did.
BTW, thanks everyone who ordered coupons and/or converters you don't intend to use, you have reassured me that there is no shortage of pigs that want to feed at the government trough.
Oh man I spent so much time this holiday explaining that if you have a satellite or cable box installed no upgrade is needed. Although I asked my grandma if she was getting the antenna and she just said she was going to get another tv. Go 85 year old grandma.
I'm one of those saps who does not have cable t.v. and didn't apply for a coupon because I thought it was based on need. I figure I needed to meet some kind of gov't requirement and I also assumed that since I could afford an $80 pair of shoes today, I could shell out the full $80 for the dtv box. Here's to paying full price!
If Im not mistaken the application for the $40 coupons was midnite January 1, 2009. This may be a way of a possible extension by just collecting names for another bailout. I need a 60" LCD 1080p Monitor bailout. Can I form a bank and go after TARP funds. Any suggestions would be helpful. I'm finding the access converter boxes to be inferior. One even burned the RF cover to the unpowered digital antenna. Oh where do I apply for my digital antenna?
How many people actually can get free TV?
I really think this is a case of people not understanding what's going on. People are confused over how to program a VCR let alone what digital and analog are.
If you can't figure out if you need a converter box or not, I quite honestly don't want to pay for you to watch TV. It's not that complicated, there's been plenty of education, and now there are, in my part of Michigan anyway, test times that show you if your TV is ready. We subsidize enough foolishness and ignorance in this country.
Side note: on a recent local news report, they interviewed a couple that said they got five coupons for their five TVs and saved $100. Maybe this is why the program's running out of money, since you're only supposed to be eligible for 2.
My mom told me at the beginning of last year to go and get my coupon for the converter box because there were limited numbers being given out. So I did. When they came a few weeks later I was surprised to find out they had a relatively quick expiration date. At that time I hadn't seen any converter boxes in the stores yet (it was afterall about a year still before the switch). Sadly the coupons expired. I still need a converter box. On a happy note my husband bought a new hdtv at Christmas for our main tv but the small set in our bedroom may just turn into a dust collector. Sad for me.
The utter ignorance of people continues to amaze me. Why can't we set up a reservation and just start shipping people there? It would certainly help the election process and many other things. This transition and what needs to be done could not be more simple.
"A recent study by Consumers Union showed that 41% of consumers polled think that every TV in a house must have a new converter box, even those that are already connected to cable or satellite."
They are out as of now.
I just went to get the one coupon I needed for the TV in the playroom, and I am now officially on a waiting list.
@smallestmills: Good point. It seems like folks may have forgotten you can buy the box without a coupon. So if you can afford it, this program running out of money isn't a really big deal - you can still buy a box. It's only if you can't afford it that the end of the coupons becomes an issue.
This post is not about a shortage of boxes. It's about a shortage of coupons, due in some cases to lack of education, and in other cases to a sense that, although I may have just bought a new plasma TV, I'm still poor and could use that discount.
I'll admit, shamefully, that I'm someone with cable tv and asked for a coupon. I have AT&T U-verse, and the set top box (STB) turns its off between 5 to 6 hours if you don't push any buttons. Recordings still work, but the signal to the tv is turned off and you get an ugly blue screen. AT&T said there is no way to change the settings.
It's a problem because I use my tv to babysit my parrot while I'm not home. And he does watch it. So I'm getting a tv switch box, the antenna and the converter box to let him watch tv for more than 6 hours while I'm not home. I'm usually gone for 9, so that means that he's got nothing to watch or listen too (and drown out the noise from the neighbors and apartment) for at least 3 hours a day.
And I wondered how he had time to escape his cage.
Why TF are the tax paying citizens of this country footing the bill for people to be able to have TV? Its like TV is a God given right specified in the Bill of Rights...
Add me to the list of satisfied customers. I picked up two boxes (using the coupons) months ago, finally got around to installing an antenna the other day, and boo ya. About 30 channels (some duplicates from separate cities) crystal clear, no cable bill. And no new TV's to buy! Sucks for people who waited. Might just be worth it to buy the boxes outright. It's a cheapskate's dream.
@Ingram81: "the tax paying citizens of this country [are] footing the bill" because the government mandated the end to analogue signals - leaving millions of non-cable users with useless TV sets.
But does my VCR need a converter box if I am going to watch one program while I record another? I can't see that the old VCR does not have a digital tuner.
Is there any way to figure out how many channels you'll get post switch, without running out and shucking out $50 on a converter box? Right now, my indoor rabbit ears get me about... 7 channels. 8 if I turn the rabbit ears around for one specific channel.
Will this improve or get worse after February?
Yay $50 tax for goverment "update" of our analog crap.
Wow... really? I paid $10 after coupon for mine. I got it for the smaller TV I have that can be easily moved outside or whatnot.
@KHook321:
I've heard at least four ads, radio and TV, in the past week telling people that they "need to get an HDTV" because their current TV "will stop working."
Most of them have been from H.H. Gregg
@ShadowFalls: I paid $60 plus tax less the $40 coupon. There were cheaper ones but I didn't like them.
So, people will have to buy their own converter box?
Oh, no!
@batsy: Obviously, the old people don't watch TV and thus don't need a converter anyway.
If they did, they would have seen the commercials by now.
big deal. converters what? 50 dollars?
it was hardly a program for the poor anyways, there was no means test..no public housing only type filter. it was just a nice discount to take the sting out of buying new sh*t for old tvs even if you could afford it.
@IronLung492: You're not paying for anyone to watch TV through this program. All the funds were set aside from the proceeds of the auctioning off of the airwaves.
@whatdoyoucare: Same thing happened to me. Mine expired before I saw any boxes in the stores.
Oh well, there's nothing worth watching anyway.
@Ein2015: No old people watch television? Is that what you said? K. Gotcha.
And those commercials hardly explain everything. A lot of the ones I've seen have been somewhat misleading. And a lot of older people don't use the internet so they can't go google the digital conversion and find out about it. Their way of figuring it out is going into their local electronics store and asking a trustworthy employee.
They have a link here at [www.dtv2009.gov] that shows how many coupons are taken. Apparently on New Year's Eve 466,000 coupons were requested. Given the number of coupons remaining, that means that somebody took the last coupon yesterday. I don't understand the whole "running out of time" bit though, as in my market the Wal-Marts had them within two weeks of when I received my coupon, and I called at 12:01 a.m. from the Rose Parade route to get my coupon. Sure, they didn't have the boxes that I wanted (I was holding out for that DTVPal that everyone thought was vaporware), but I got a functional box from Wally World and a functional box a couple of weeks before expiration from Best Buy.
@whatdoyoucare: the same thing happened to me. all the stores were 'sold out' and the same with all the websites listed. when we finally found one, the day the coupon expired, it was some brand we'd never heard of.
i have another complaint about this whole thing too: why aren't there any for $40?--even the totally unknown brand ones are at least $60.
whatever. can't afford to buy a seperate box now without a coupon, a new tv, or cable. i'll keep my $20 internet and frequent hulu.
My hometown newspaper (Lansing State Journal) has been reporting on these coupons, and apparently lots of people are requesting them and then never receiving them. I wonder if that's were some of the money is going, sending out coupons that never get to the recipient.
This program is GOVERNMENT FUNDED. OUR GOVERNMENT is giving away BILLIONS of dollars to crooked corporate executives that is squandering OUR money, and now they are bitching about running out of money for a program that that is FORCING technology on its citizens???
@MrsLopsided: And "tax paying citizens" aren't paying for it. The money used for the coupons comes from the sale of the bands.
What a boondoggle.
If we're making this switch, why not go all the way and allow the cable channels with near 100% market penetration (CNN, ESPN) to open up digital broadcast channels in major markets-- I'm sure 1) they'd do it and 2) we'd put an end to cable as we know it.