You can’t hold back progress (unless you are Amish) and you cannot stop change. But if you harass your senate long enough you just might be able to delay it.
With old technology for TV going the way of the dinosaur, analog signals picked up on antennae are about to become a thing of the past. But they get a small reprieve while your grandma has to find it in her budget to get a TV with a coaxial input so her little black and white clunky dial 19 inch television still has some life in it.
After protracted behind-the-scenes negotiations throughout the halls of Congress, often involving angry debate, the American public will get its digital TV reprieve. After the Obama administration pushed, the House vote today means the cut-off date for analog has been moved from February 17th to June 12th. Consumers with expired coupons can reapply, and those who never got their coupons have more time.
When I heard about this, I was surprised that there is even a fuss about it. It doesn’t affect my household at all, but then I don’t have any 20 year old televisions.
In a nutshell, this just means that in order to get a TV signal you have to have a TV that can accept a digital connection. The government is even “bailing out” the technologically challenged by offering a coupon for you to get an adapter so those old antennae only TV’s can accept a line. (Cuz buying one at Walmart for $8 is robbery I tell ya!)
But this delaying of the inevitable is going to cost everyone BUT the government extra money. TV Stations that were broadcasting over the airwaves will now be required to continue the service for a few more months. All the ads telling you to get on board will have to be adjusted.
I don’t know what giving them an extra 4 months of denial is going to do.
The entire program has been mishandled by the FCC, so the delay has little to do with denial on the part of older customers. I’m in electronics and watching this mess and the hoops people must go through is ridiculous. Most people have been trying their best to get situated and have hit walls left and right. Many are still unprepared, the signals don’t work and stations are losing their markets. The change will be a small disaster whenever it occurs.
I do agree, though, that a delay won’t help much, at least not on it’s own. The coupon program needs more money, but that’s only a small problem. The troubles with the signal transmission must be addressed. Even if everyone gets their box and can pay for it, many stations will be lost to customers and many customers will be lost to stations.
*sigh* stupid old people
it is just unbelievable to me that anyone may need more time to get the damn thing. what is it, some hick in the middle of nowhere that doesn’t wanna let go? and i don’t know about in the states, but here the commercials for this thing are kind of insulting. like putting “red with red, white with white and yellow with yellow” is a fucking science that needs to be explained
First of all, this affects less than 1% of households. I find it very discouraging that the government is cowtowing to a miniscule segment of the population that are not contributing much to the Commmunications infrastructure itself. It is estimated that stations nationwide have spent tens of billions of dollars by maintaining old equipment and NOT switching until now. They also had dated their contracts on this equipment for this month. (This costs them even more!)
IF the percentage was higher say 10% then I would support pushing this back to the summer.
Secondly, the government needs those frequencies for other uses.
We’ve delayed this beyond belief. Do it already (like a band aid).
This whole thing makes me laugh we’ve been watching these warnings for more than six months, news channels have given tips on what can be done and there has been a constant reminder of the change scrolling at the bottom of screen every half hour on several channels. People are simply lazy and bitch and whined loud enough to be lazy for another four months.
THis makes sense to delay it to summer. I don’t know what idiot wanted to make the switch during sweeps month.
The technology was obsolete 10 years ago, so why would it matter when the stations stop broadcasting over the air?
Besides, sweeps are rated by digital signals. They cant track people picking up the analog signals.
they only delayed b/c almost noone can get a converter in time, at least thats what i heard
I saw commercials for the digital change since June of 2008, if you waited ’till now to get a converter than you should die in a fire
lol i got mine back in october