Congress Pays You $3 Billion to Keep Watching TV

Felix the Cat writes "After budgets cuts led to the layoff of engineers and scientists at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a US Senate committee has approved a $3 billion dollar subsidy to assist Americans in their difficult transition to digital television in 2009. The old analog television spectrum will be auctioned off to the highest bidder. The transition date was chosen to not interfere with college football bowl games or basketball playoffs." From the article: "The draft of a House bill would end analog transmissions on Dec. 31, 2008. It does not mention a subsidy for set-top converter boxes. So, lawmakers will likely have to work out differences between the two bills, though Stevens said he did not anticipate a big fight with the House over the deadline or the subsidy."

Comments

Re:Stupid.

[Daleks]

We are paying for this. The $3 billion is coming from the tax payers. The funny thing is, it's really the TV industry that forced us to pay for this ourselves, automatically via taxes.

Digital TV = anal rape

[Anonymous Coward]

For those interested in a brief history of HDTV, here it is:

Here's how it went:

Broadcast Industry asks for bandwidth for HDTV
FCC says "OK, we'll set aside bandwidth for HDTV"
FCC says "What standards?"
Industry says 'No Standards Please' and come up with EIGHTEEN recommended formats for HDTV. I am not shitting you.
FCC says "Isn't 18 different standards a bit much?"
Industry says "Shut the fuck up FCC, we know what we are doing. The 'market' will handle this!"
Consumer Electronics dudes whine "18 formats make every thing cost more, you are fucking us!"
FCC says "OK, it's your call on standards, 18 formats is fine, infact there are NO STANDARDS AT ALL, 'cause we are letting the 'market decide', but you start broadcasting HDTV now or we take back the FREE bandwidth."
Industry says "What? We really just want the free bandwidth. You really want us to do HDTV??
Congress says "Fuck you Industry. Broadcast HDTV or we'll legislate your asses back to Sun-day!"
Industry says "We're fucked. 18 formats? Why the hell did we do that? Let's change it."
Consumer Electronics dudes say "You ain't changing shit. We are already building the boxes you said you wanted built."
FCC says "Yah, ya boneheads we told you 18 was too many, now you gotta live with it."
Industry says "Well FCC, will you at least make the cable companies carry the HDTV at no charge?"
Cable companies say "Fuck you! You gotta pay! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!"
FCC says "Yep, no federal mandated on HDTV must carry, we are letting 'the market' handle that"
Industry says "We are so fucked. We are spending 5-10 million per TV station in hardware alone and have 1000 HDTV viewers per city, even in LA!"
Consumer at home says "Where is my HDTV? Why does it cost so much? Fuck it, I'm sticking with cable/DirecTV."

Consumer electronics dudes, broadcast industry, FCC, and congress all cry. Cable companies laugh and make even bigger profits.

Get rid of your television!

[Agent Green]

I'm already waaaay ahead of you, my friend. My idea is better...I got rid of my television outright.

Last year, I sold my NTSC television (36" Sony Trinitron) on eBay for $200 with pedestal. I figure I was out about $1000 over the 6 years I owned it.

Guess what I did next?

Wrong. I didn't replace it. My wife and I have no television. No ads. None of the soundbytes. No cable bill. No TiVo bill. No MythTV Mayhem. No equipment to keep thinking about upgrading. No worries about the broadcast flag. Nobody trying to push my buttons over the screen.

All that and more free space in my living room for the couch.

The funny thing is...we don't really miss TV and that gives us time to pursue other things. We'll catch a glimse of a show or a movie on the tube if we're out with friends or whatnot, but that's about it. Even then, most of the time we just turn the thing off.

We have survived our first year without a television in the house (as of 10/10!) and our lives have become much more enriched as a result.

Re:Naive a little?

[ink]

I can guarantee that any person with a brain that watched the presidential debates would not have voted for Bush, but he still won.

You must have watched different debates than I did. I came away hating both candidates. Bush is a simple manager that leans heavily on his "experts", and can't think on the fly to save his life; Kerry is a carreer politician who will say anything to anyone to get elected. We need to take the caucus/primary power away from those notheastern small states. Dean could have solidly beat Bush, if he hadn't "scared" those poor farmers with his scream.

I voted for Kerry, but it was the most distateful vote I have ever cast.

It wasn't an obvious call by any means, and I'm not surprised that people were conflicted. Trying to pick between Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum isn't fun.