Very big news for local TV stations. The Obama administration is recommending delaying this February’s DTV switchover because of problems with the converter box program and “inadequate funding” of government education programs.
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Obama asks Congress to delay DTV switch
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© 2009 Lost Remote. 
Oh man.
This is just when I started looking at the DTV Countdown clocks on all the stations as the “Countdown until the DTV PSAs Are Over”
The problem is that we’ve run out of coupons. We always knew there weren’t enough coupons, but now people are cancelling cable and they didn’t buy new TVs for Christmas. Suddently the digital transition has become a tax in the middle of a recession. But once more coupons can go out, the transition should go ahead.
After months of being warned to get their coupons early, people are now finding out they should have gotten their coupons early? There’s a shocker.
a few ‘vendors’ at a sunday flea market we walked through last weekend seemed to get their coupons early… they were selling the darn things @ their stands.
i’m always suspicious when someone has but one or two of something ‘new’ to sell.
the whole process was ripe for picking.
Funny story.
I was at a meeting about two years ago and one of the speakers was an gov’t guy. Nice fella. Explained these coupon things and how much money was going into them. I engaged in what can only be described as “math.” I figured there was only 1/4th as much money as there were TVs. Even without a 1:1 exchange, the demand was going to outstrip the supply.
So I went up to him afterwards and asked him if my numbers were right. He agreed. His position was that “not everyone was going to ask for these,” and that there would be plenty of people who wouldn’t even hear about the program.
The FCC didn’t understand a simple basic of econ 101: there is an unlimited demand for free stuff.
Why are we wasting our time and money?
If you can’t watch digital, who cares?
If you delay the switchover, it’ll just drag on forever. People won’t bother, since they can still watch their stories.
But, if you just cut right over, it’ll all be over in a matter of weeks.
Prognosticators 1 – Public 0
People have been alerted for a year now. Just like the tax season, there will be a few that go- duh, I didn’t know anything about it. They ignored the warnings; they pay the price.
I interviewed the dean of the TV Program today at a local university.
Their program works with the FCC to follow the transition in NC, even setting up a phone bank to track calls for the FCC during the Wilmington transition and during the short analog shutdown tests in other NC markets.
She had a great solution….give people a tax credit for the $40 on their income tax. Problem solved.
She also said what’s been said here already…cut off the analog and people will figure it out in a matter of days.
The transition doesn’t DEPEND on everyone getting a coupon, and never did. The government offered some help to the first few million people who applied, and now coupons have run out and some people don’t get a discount on their converter box. Listening to the media, you’d think the whole digital transition hinged on every last person getting a discount coupon! As for the “need” to have TV in case of emergencies, well, radio is much better since it doesn’t depend on having household current, and a big part of the digital transition means freeing up bandwidth for emergency personnel, so delaying the transition actually ENDANGERS more people than it helps, I’d guess.
This will be the Y2K and Bird Flu of 2009.
NO IT WONT. If you ever bothered to look on Craigslist you realize people are trying to SELL the NTSC gems EN MASSE. Oh, yes, somebody still needs these and recycling won’t pay for my gas the the disposal station. It costs MONEY to get rid of them in many cases! So many of them are big screens and broken (if you know how to you can have it they say).
Nobody either cares or else they haven’t a clue. What is worse is the number of UHF only HDTV outdoor antennas show up after the buyer realizes there are VHF DTVs in the market and FRUSTRATED, they get satellite and dump the new antenna on some other happy dude.
(Randy Newman) It’s MONEY that matters!(/off)
So to date it looks as if JAPAN is perhaps the only country to make an HDTV work halfway and that system was ANALOG.
TOM: Y2K did get some 3 and 486 garbage out the door, which was really of benefit. Bird flu kills andthe methods of systemic pandemic have variables too random to comprehend sometimes (read: LUCK).
In my market the CBS station is dropped from DISHm rebroadcast on DT and an LP they own. They claim the expences run 10,000 a month extra for the analog service and if it continues it will hurt. Yet while they OWN the LP the NBC affiliate LEASES an LP as well as rebroadcasting and presenting original programming as well. Several LP/CA stations aren’t switching at that point but the company that leases the NBC station’s outlet has perhaps 3-4 LPs there total and one if not 2-4 will switch on that date.
The ABC station uses .2 for a Spanish service while the CBS channel DROPPED Spanish for CBS due to low ratings (have they got those yet?) and no matter what type of programming or how many people in the market watch it the market is still overloaded.
The only folks that did multichannel right were the PBS crew. Even so it’s like 5 HBOs and 4 Showtimes on satellite–RERUNS.
It’s a FARCE. I’m seeing 20 years of hard research and work ending up like IBOC/HD Radio. It took almost 20 years for the UK to switch from 405 line monochrome completely and digital AM radio I hear has been such a joke that countries are rushing to switch back.
The problem is that it’s like Televangelists and PT Barnum are in charge. Your spectrum has been sold from beneath you already, the swindle is almost complete.