It was widely reported Thursday that President-Elect Obama is urging congress to again delay the digital transition that is supposed to take place on February 17. That’s right, again delay because the transition was initially supposed to take place in December 2006 and congress delayed it to 2009. For those of you that don’t know what I’m talking about (if any exist on the internet) the digital transition is the congressional mandate that television stations end analog transmissions and begin transmitting only digital signals. That means if you are watching TV on rabbit ears, or any other over the air antenna, and you don’t have a high definition television, you will no longer be able to watch TV without the aid of a digital converter box, or cable / satellite service.
Postponing the transition is a bad idea. For one thing, the government has already postponed it once. If the government could not get a plan together to appease the masses in the length of time since the initial transition was supposed to take place, what’s to lead anyone to believe they can do so now? Also, plans have been in the works for the use of the abandoned analog spectrum including a mega auction that took place last year.
Moreover, the government has already spent 1.3 billion dollars in providing $40 coupons to aid in purchasing digital converter boxes. For those who don’t feel like checking the numbers that means that they have purchased over 32 million boxes, or one for just over 10 percent of the entire American population. According to a census.gov press release in 2006 the total number of households with a television is 110 million. Of that 110 million, 73.2 million have cable. For a percentage breakdown, approximately 66.5% of all U.S. households have cable. If you add that to the 29.5 percent of households that boxes have already been purchased for (14.75 if each person received the maximum of 2 coupons) approximately 81% – 96% of all households will have no problem on February 17. Given that the best numbers I could find for satellite penetration in the U.S. are 25 – 27% of the number of households, very few people even have the opportunity to be affected.Those in favor say that the money has run dry and that there is a 100,000 person waiting list for the coupons. 100,000 sounds like a large number, but in reality it doesn’t even represent one percent of the total number of households in the U.S.
The fact is that this transition has been a long time coming. Every television channel has at least for one full year been giving warning that the transition was impending. The government has had more than two years to have plans in place since the first delay and have already spent 1.3 billion in taxpayer money in an attempt to make the transition smooth. If more money needs to be given for more coupons, then so be it, but postponing the transition will only cause more confusion.
Filed under: Current Events
