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Obama Recommends Delay In Digital TV Switch
gregg writes "Six weeks before the nation's television stations are scheduled to convert to digital transmission, the Obama administration is asking Congress to consider a delay. In the most significant sign to date of concern about the impending digital TV transition, the Obama transition team co-chair John Podesta said the government funds to support the change are 'woefully inadequate' and said that the digital switch date, Feb. 17, should be 'reconsidered and extended.'"
I just hate paying for programming that contains ads. I mean, isn't that what the ads are for?
Yes, the ads are paying for the programming. But not for the access. That's what your cable bill is for -- to pay for the wiring and access to the programming.
Or to put it another way, are you surprised that have to pay a bill to your ISP -and- you see ads on cnn.com?
I really don't know why people find the cable-TV concept so confusing.
[and yes, I realize cable is a bit more complicated, in that there are arrangements where cable kicks up some money to a channel for carrying the channel, but that isn't enough to pay for most programming. The point still stands.]
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I hope there will be cheap radios that can pickup digital TV sound like there is now for analog.
During the recent long power outage in New Hampshire, we found it very useful to have a little radio that picked up TV sound. The coverage of the emergency seemed to be better on TV than radio.
Radios like that will soon be less useful.
I can't speak for everywhere obviously, but here in Los Angeles pulling the plug on the analog transmissions is a big big deal. Not just because of Southern California's population but because of it's LATINO population.
I work in this industry for a Low Power Analog TV station (one that broadcasts on 4 different stations locally and a bunch more across the country). And the transition represents about 80% of my workload lately (I do broadcast engineering and IT).
But back on point, a LOT and I mean like hundreds of thousands of Latino families in the area rely on OTA transmissions. When you pull their plug, you might say "great, now they can go outside, read a book, etc" but in reality they're not tuned in. So that means advertising revenue dries up for the station (as it has for ours and almost every other that caters to the Latino community as well as mainstream tv programming). That means more layoffs and so on down the line.
Speaking for my company and other smaller players this delay is a good thing. Eventually the analog stations will go away and that's fine and eventually the low power guys like myself will have a concrete deadline too, and that's fine as well. Just remember though, millions have cable, direcTV, Dish, etc but there are still MORE than a few out there that really rely on plain vanilla over the air TV broadcast.
Of course, with the analog transmitters off, I believe they will be allowed to turn the power on the digital signals up quite a bit, extending the range from what's available today.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
From my POV here in Rhode Island, it looks like most 'poor' people have satellite, the middle class have cable and fios. I attribute this to the sat. companies not doing a credit check, which the cable companies seem to do.
The upper-middle class are the only folks I see with 'regular' TVs anymore. They listen to NPR and tune in to PBS or watch the news, but that's pretty much it.
And the rich folks... I wouldn't know. They never invite me over. :-) I would assume they keep high-end HDTV setups, but rarely watch.
I do think that there is an inversely proportional relationship to how much TV you watch and how much money you make though. I don't really ever spot my well-to-do friends watching TV. I haven't figured out if it's because
more disposable income -> better things to do than TV
or
educated and motivated -> more disposable income
The funny thing was, I went over to my parents a few days ago, and they think they're all set because they have cable, which is true in the TV room; but then they flipped on their little black-and-white 4" TV in the kitchen for the news. I pointed out that they'll have to drop about two hundred bucks to replace -that-, to which my dad replied, "Screw it, I'll throw it away."
Come to think of it, I haven't seen -one- actual, installed DTV converter, and I was in a -lot- of houses in the last month. I also don't know anyone who consumes OTA digital TV.
I'll bet there are a -ton- of elderly folks in those huge apartment towers I see all over town that have bunny ears though... They're going to be pissed, and they vote.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Here in Finland the switch was made in Sep. 2007 for terrestrial broadcasting and cable television Feb. 2008. The rest of the EU member states are expected to stop analogue television transmissions by 2012. Wasn't such a big deal... many people actually are still refusing to buy the convertor box after being able to notice a dramatic improvement in their quality of life.
My mother still has broadcast TV. No cable. She's not the only one I know. There are a lot of lower income people that can't afford the high monthly prices of subscription TV. Don't look at just your own peer group to decide whether or not something is ubiquitous.
The snag though is that the Digital TV signal isn't that great where she is, and she's going to lose one of her favorite channels that comes in quite well over analog.
Even better. There should be a second wave of more capable converter boxes that don't have the stupid limitations that were imposed on the current ones such as no digital audio outputs, no HD component outs, etc.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.