Senate passes bill to delay digital TV switch

[Driver_King]

According to one of the government run transition programs, the switch is still February 17th...

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by Marine Mike

If the government has been dragging their feet and its not the consumer's fault, then I do not see the issue with this happening.

It's a matter of opinion that it's not the fault of those in the 6.5 million house holds still not ready for the DTV switch after so many years build up leading to 2/17/09.

I didn't get a $40-$80 government hand out when I bought my new HDTV. All these folks have to do is get a $40 converter box. Perhaps some can't even afford that, but I believe many of those not ready for the DTV switch can. The converter boxes are available at prices similar to that of entry level DVD players. They're cheap. Why even bother waiting for a gimmie from Uncle Sam? Take care of business already!

The real issue is this silly four month delay will cost a lot of businesses, both large and small, many millions of dollars. On top of that, it will only confuse an already screwy situation.

According to one of the government run transition programs, the switch is still February 17th...

Actually this DTV delay bill will allow TV stations to cut off their analog signals after February 17 if they're ready to make the switch. The catch is if those TV stations have the guts to turn off the analog signals originally as scheduled they will get all the grief from angry viewers who procrastinated on buying new TVs or converter boxes. The government conveniently lets the TV stations be the bad guys instead.

[ganthc]

Originally Posted by Driver_King

According to one of the government run transition programs, the switch is still February 17th...

And it will be until the House of Representative passes a similar bill and President Obama signs it into law. If either of those things don't happen, then the date remains as is. However, since the majority of the people who need this change to take place are poor, the Democratic majorities in Congress and the Democratic White House will pass this.

[Driver_King]

Let's hope the House sees this through. Barack wanted this done. This is the first thing I've been totally against. I don't see any advantages whatsoever of delaying the transition any longer. Can't the government just send out an IOU to everyone who sends in a receipt or something?

[caliblue15]

Originally Posted by Driver_King

Let's hope the House sees this through. Barack wanted this done. This is the first thing I've been totally against. I don't see any advantages whatsoever of delaying the transition any longer. Can't the government just send out an IOU to everyone who sends in a receipt or something?

Or make it a tax right off...

[Halcro 1]

If the government can get something like this digital transition right ,,,,How are they going the subsidize health insuance ......This is wht the middle and upper income should be very afraid of our current leaders

[ganthc]

Originally Posted by caliblue15

Or make it a tax right off...

A lot of the people doing this are probably 1040EZ filers, and would take the standard deduction. Many will claim they are too poor to wait till next year to get the 1040ez form with the line item for the DTV box. In the new Obama "Age of Responsibility" the govt is saying that all these people are not responsible for their delay nor are they responsible for paying for the box. *sigh*

[supersix4]

Originally Posted by quexos

Don't complain people. Over here the switch won't take place until 2011 ...

yeah why would people here care lol don't we all have digital tv/ tv signal ??...... not to mention I heard on the news 20 million people still haven't switched, and if 10-15 of those can't afford it give them some more time...

[caliblue15]

Originally Posted by supersix4

yeah why would people here care lol don't we all have digital tv/ tv signal ??...... not to mention I heard on the news 20 million people still haven't switched, and if 10-15 of those can't afford it give them some more time...

because I'm stuck in a dorm room, where they dont have digital cable... and I can't get standard OTA digital, because the companies can't broadcast at full range, otherwise they would have no analog signal... I want the Superbowl in HD!

[reiella]

Originally Posted by Marine Mike

If the government has been dragging their feet and its not the consumer's fault, then I do not see the issue with this happening.

Except, it's also not the fault of the folks who have already paid for parts of the spectrum who are having to either bribe station owners to prematurely turn off their analog signal to utilize or simply sit on equipment that's doing nothing but costing them space and money.

Personally, the big one that gets me are the parts of the spectrum that are going to public service so first responders can more easily communicate with each other getting pushed back potentially a year due to missing the good testing timeframe.

[Pirate King]

I think most of us agree. Moving back the date is a bad idea. But y'know what? I bet those who would be staring at "snow" on their TV's on February 19th would figure it out pretty damn quick. If not. Well, all I have to say to them,, is that sometimes life sucks.

[Bobby Henderson]

Moving the date back to June 12 is indeed a bad idea. And before the end of May the same bad idea will be brought up again. I'll be surprised if the President and the US Congress don't ask for another delay by then.

[Sir Terrence]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

I'm really disappointed the Senate has passed a bill for this very stupid delay. Moving the cut off date to June 12 will change nothing. There will still be nearly the same number of people possibly stuck with no over the air TV service. Those folks aren't going to change their TV viewing equipment until they are forced to change by having no TV signal at all.

That number changes depending on who is doing the reporting. The Yahoo article claims 20 million households are unprepared for the DTV switch. Nielsen puts the number near 6 million households (down from over 8 million a few months ago). The US has over 130 million households.

Sure, some of the people not ready for the change are low income viewers. However, there is a significant percentage who aren't impoverished and have simply refused to make any changes at all. A lot of elderly viewers don't want to fart around with new technology, even something as simple as a rudimentary converter box. Then there's the conspiracy theory types who think the whole DTV process is just a plot to get everyone stuck paying for cable or satellite service. Last, but not least, a good portion of the hold outs have just been too lazy or dense to get properly prepared for the DTV change.

I wouldn't be nearly as irritated about this delay if the government had brought this up a few months ago -at a time when TV stations and broadcast networks could have done more to adjust their schedules.

Instead, the government is moving to pass this crappy legislation only 3 weeks away from the February 17 analog cut-off date. That's outrageous. A lot of local TV stations are already firing up their DTV transmissions to "full power" levels. A lot of NBC affiliates have been ramping up to 1 million watt DTV broadcast levels in advance of Super Bowl 43.

Not many local TV stations can afford to sustain full power DTV transmission levels while keeping a legacy analog TV signal running at normal levels for another 4 months after the original deadline date.

I guess that's why over $650 million in taxpayer money is proposed to be put aside in the not-yet-passed economic stimulus package being proposed. This DTV delay could end up costing billions of dollars. Local TV stations and large telecom companies could eat those losses and adjust by tossing even more people out of work. Or the taxpayers, as usual, can provide a bail out.

Bobby,
Many TV stations are not ready either. My close friend is the Director of Engineering for a ABC owned station in San Francisco. She says all of the ABC owned station have significant blackout areas within the broadcast region. They have not had suffiencient time to work out how to get a signal to these "blacked out" areas. The last analog shut off test they did caused had so many issues that the callers overloaded the phone system which knocked it completely out.

The TV stations depend on viewership for their advertising revenue. It was estimated that in the SF area, about 70-100,000 people would lose their signal entirely, and that is for ABC viewers alone, not to mention the other 7 stations that broadcast off of the same tower. That is a signficant chunk of revenue lost because the FCC and the SF city council dragged their feet through this conversion. The city council of SF just approved the antennae changes on the broadcast tower TWO WEEKS AGO!!! Now it takes months to take down old analog antennae and install new digital ones. I worked the phones during the last shut off, and it was very heartbreaking having an elderly person tell you they have nothing else they can do but watch television or listen to the radio, and we are taking their TV away from them. Here in the bay area, I know of no station that has gone to full DTV power, or had any plans on going full power before the analog cut off date. The stations can now just continue running both analog and digital broadcasting. The only station I heard complaining about this change is the PBS stations here. All of the network broadcasters that my friend has talk to (and that would be all of the majors, and some local stations) seem to be breathing a sigh of relief over this decision. Nobody wants to lose viewers, especially now that advertising revenue has taken such a hit.

The people are not ready, the stations are not ready, and this really needed to be delayed, no matter how inconvient it is in the short run.

It is time the people in this country start thinking about the next guy. We have turned into "isolated" thinkers who only work off the information in our own heads. We have to start thinking about how this is going to affect the next guy as well, and it is not pretty from where I sit.

[Sir Terrence]

Originally Posted by supersix4

yeah why would people here care lol don't we all have digital tv/ tv signal ??...... not to mention I heard on the news 20 million people still haven't switched, and if 10-15 of those can't afford it give them some more time...

The insensitivity of the posters here surprise me a bit. Be we are living in a me, me, me country now. So as long as they are ready, everyone else be damned!

[Pirate King]

Sir Terrance,

Ok. I accept what you had to say about the situation in San Francisco. Personally, I apologize. I am not going to be affected by the switch over, so I think I will keep my mouth shut on this issue.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

[Sir Terrence]

Originally Posted by Pirate King

Sir Terrance,

Ok. I accept what you had to say about the situation in San Francisco. Personally, I apologize. I am not going to be affected by the switch over, so I think I will keep my mouth shut on this issue.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Mr. King, may I call you Pirate? No need to apologize man, I just wanted to point out that while we can program and setup a conversion box, we can afford to buy DTV's, and we are not afraid of new technology, not everyone is in that boat. Most of the folks I talked to during shut off were lonely single elderly people who just cannot manuever through new technology. They are so scared of technology, it just paralyzes them. Then you have the single old lady who is all alone, and her roof antennae needs a small adjustment to pick up Digital signals. Who is going to help her? Or the blind elderly man? Or alzheimers or any other debilitating disease? I had people wanting to pay me to set them up, which I cannot do. They are on fixed imcomes, and they cannot afford to pay anyone to adjust their antennae, or set them up. These elderly folks are still using VCR's for crying out loud!! LOL

[doctorsteve]

Originally Posted by tron3

I don't keep ANY analog stations. Even those with no digital equivilent yet.

Really now... that's just silly.

[Anthony P]

Moving the date back to June 12 is indeed a bad idea. And before the end of May the same bad idea will be brought up again. I'll be surprised if the President and the US Congress don't ask for another delay by then.

lol, I agree, I am starting to think all the people that have predicted an end of the world in 2012 did so because they where in tune with analogue signals going around black holes and coming back backwards through time. Since these people did not understand analogue/digital and the news broadcasts end in 2012 they assumed it was the end of the world

[saprano]

Originally Posted by Sir Terrence

Bobby,
Many TV stations are not ready either. My close friend is the Director of Engineering for a ABC owned station in San Francisco. She says all of the ABC owned station have significant blackout areas within the broadcast region. They have not had suffiencient time to work out how to get a signal to these "blacked out" areas. The last analog shut off test they did caused had so many issues that the callers overloaded the phone system which knocked it completely out.

The TV stations depend on viewership for their advertising revenue. It was estimated that in the SF area, about 70-100,000 people would lose their signal entirely, and that is for ABC viewers alone, not to mention the other 7 stations that broadcast off of the same tower. That is a signficant chunk of revenue lost because the FCC and the SF city council dragged their feet through this conversion. The city council of SF just approved the antennae changes on the broadcast tower TWO WEEKS AGO!!! Now it takes months to take down old analog antennae and install new digital ones. I worked the phones during the last shut off, and it was very heartbreaking having an elderly person tell you they have nothing else they can do but watch television or listen to the radio, and we are taking their TV away from them. Here in the bay area, I know of no station that has gone to full DTV power, or had any plans on going full power before the analog cut off date. The stations can now just continue running both analog and digital broadcasting. The only station I heard complaining about this change is the PBS stations here. All of the network broadcasters that my friend has talk to (and that would be all of the majors, and some local stations) seem to be breathing a sigh of relief over this decision. Nobody wants to lose viewers, especially now that advertising revenue has taken such a hit.

The people are not ready, the stations are not ready, and this really needed to be delayed, no matter how inconvient it is in the short run.

It is time the people in this country start thinking about the next guy. We have turned into "isolated" thinkers who only work off the information in our own heads. We have to start thinking about how this is going to affect the next guy as well, and it is not pretty from where I sit.

Terrence, you dont think the "next guy" and everyone else didn't have enough time to get ready for this? i dont understand what 3 extra months is going to do, its going to be the samething, alot of people still aren't going to be ready. what then? funny thing is my grandmother knew about this for a long time. at first she would always bother me about why her tv is not going to work, and what does she need. i explained everything to her, she stll was kind of confused but once they started advertising it on tv everyday she understood. she was planning on getting verizon soon, i guess she's going to be happy after i tell her the news.

[Anthony P]

The people are not ready, the stations are not ready, and this really needed to be delayed, no matter how inconvient it is in the short run.

but it is not a tech issue. It is not a resource issue. It is not an availability issue. It is pure and simply a procrastination issue. Now don't get me wrong, I am the king of procrastinators, but in the end postponing it for a handful of months just means that most (if not all) that are not ready will just wait some more and then most (if not all) will still not be ready. On the other hand we are talking a delay of a handful of months. Does it really make a difference? Obviously if someone is sitting on their but and will just go out and get a new TV, it does not need a long time, so even a month will be more then enough to change it, but then again he could go get that TV today and he should have it (even if bought over the net) before the original cut off. As for TV stations come on, the original cut off was in 2006, it got changed for 2009, if a difference of around 3 years was not enough how will 3 months change stuff (unless we go back to the original thing I said and the issue was not time but procrastination, and if that is the issue, then why believe that the "making sure we have 100% coverage" won't be put down on the priority list after all they have more time again.