US House Kills Proposed Delay For Digital TV Transition

An anonymous reader writes "The Digital TV transition delay bill has failed to pass the United States House of Representatives. By a vote 258 to 168 in favor of changing the date, the bill has failed as two-thirds of the votes are required for it to pass. The delay bill was once perceived as inevitable, [but the House] has now apparently made February 17th the date of transition once again. Now the question remains, will they attempt to pass it again by the deadline?"

Comments

It was a vote to suspend the rules

[stinerman]

Thomas says this is a rule suspension vote. It takes a 2/3 vote to suspend the rules and pass a bill. Usually this is reserved for bills that are not very controversial and have broad support.

This failure just means that the bill will have to go to the rules committee. After a rule is passed and the bill is brought up under that rule, a simple majority is all that is needed to pass the bill.

This is just a very small bump in the road to extend the deadline.

Re:Just keep one channel broadcasting for awhile.

[frieko]

This transition only affects over-the-air broadcasts! If Cox is pulling your analog then it's a pure coincidence.

Re:Just keep one channel broadcasting for awhile.

[DreadfulGrape]

If you have a CATV-compatible television (and it's been a very long time since anything other than that was manufactured), then you, the cable-TV subscriber, will be fine, even without a digital receiver box.

The problem is that Cox, COMCAST & others have been misleading customers into thinking that they must upgrade to all-digital service, or their TVs will go dark. That's just not true.