Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

US Digital TV Switchover Delayed Until June

Posted by samzenpus on from the we'll-do-it-later dept.

necro81 writes "The Delay DTV Act was passed first by the Senate, now by the House, and will be signed by the President. The hard cutoff for turning off analog TV broadcasts in the US has been pushed out to June 12th. The act had earlier failed to gain a 2/3rds majority in the House, but passed this afternoon with a simple majority. The bill allows stations to cease analog transmissions at any point between Feb 17th (the old cutoff) and June 12th, and many have signaled they will do so."

42 of 334 comments (clear)

  1. Deja vu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In June, you'll find that there are many people who have not bought digital receivers for their televisions. June is the new February.

    1. Re:Deja vu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      In June, you'll find that there are many people who have not bought digital receivers for their televisions. June is the new February.

      Actually, most TV stations are still going to do the change on Feb 17th as planned. The bill just gives them the option to delay out until June.

      Disclaimer, I work for a cable provider, and ALL of our market affiliates have already told us they are going to change on the 17th as planned.

      So basically this bill was a waste of time. Ten years from now, people will still be pulling out old TV's and wondering why they don't work.

    2. Re:Deja vu by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No. Because of the transition, Sweeps was moved from February to March 5.

      My dad thinks the delay is great, and he hopes Congress will suddenly decide to cancel Digital television completely. Well, he is approaching 80, so maybe he's not thinking straight. Today he said to me, "Just watch, in two more years they'll stop broadcast completely and make us all upgrade to cable. The politicians love to screw us."

      According to the Nielsen Ratings Company, only 5% of households are not ready. So we postponed this switch for a measly 5% of the nation. Pathetic. ----- The other 95% already have access to cable, dish, or a DTV converter box. Here in Pennsylvania, the FCC placed the estimate at 99% ready! What the heck are we waiting for???

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    3. Re:Deja vu by snowraver1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This legislation is just a waste of time and money.

      Look at it this way: At least they weren't legislating your freedoms away.

      --
      Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
    4. Re:Deja vu by hedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's worse than that, due to the proviso that channels may change on their own at any time after Feb 17th, we now have a situation where nobody really knows when the switch is going to happen.

      The same people that were still not aware that it was going to happen this month, are going to be caught even more off guard when channels switch over in a random fashion.

      I cannot imagine how this is good news for anybody.

    5. Re:Deja vu by nevillethedevil · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Another superb example of government efficiency. Thought out, planned event + sudden last minute government intervention = A needlessly complex and convoluted mess. This is a fine example of why I want less government involvement in my life.

      --
      Be gone from my sight or prepare to feel my flaming wraith!
    6. Re:Deja vu by Golias · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm wondering why so many commenters think it's so bad that the switch is delayed?

      Let me count the ways.

      1. Not having all broadcasters switch at once is going to be a confounding mess, even for those of us who have already switched. I'm currently using a big UHF-only antenna that I've been relying on for the last two years, because the current pre-switch digital signal is weak and UHF only. Post-switch, some broadcasters are moving their digital signal to VHF and all of them were going to be boosting the signal. Now, with the VHF band still tied up as some (but not all) migrate, there are likely to be days when NOBODY can tune in every channel with a single antenna/tuner combination. Yuck!

      2. A good chunk of the freed-up bandwidth was meant to be used by emergency responders, who have made a significant investment in equipment which will now collect dust for six months.

      3. A lot of businesses have started up with the plan of buying/leasing former analog VHF bandwidth. These companies now must sit on ice for six more months and pray that they don't go belly-up before they even get a chance to open.

      4. Of the 5 percent that are not ready, most of them will still not "get ready" before June. Losing your TV signal for a little while is not the end of the world, and having their screens go to static is probably exactly what it takes to get them off the couch and waddling down to the store to pick up a cheap converter.

      5. Local broadcasters are in a bind, because their business plans didn't call for six more months of sending two signals, but if they do take the option of switching on the 17th, they risk losing customers.

      6. Current digital signals are so week, that outer-ring "exurbs" in most metro areas can't consistently tune them in. During the switch DTV signals are expected to become a lot more powerful, making the broadcasts much more widely available... but if everything is not switched at once it's going to mean that those communities will lose some of their analog signals before the digital signal is strong enough to reach them. They go dark because a handful of people were too lazy to take advantage of a converter coupon. It's idiotic.

      Anything else you are wondering about?

      --

      Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

  2. Confusion by daveywest · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The reason for the date change: a bunch of elderly and poor TV viewers are confused about the switchover.

    The result: now everyone is confused.

    President O, aren't there more important things for you to be working on?

    1. Re:Confusion by geekoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A) it's not a whole lot of his time.
      B) It important to a lot of people.

      TO me the most important part of the bill is that I'll be able to get another card for a converter, since my last one expired.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    2. Re:Confusion by daveywest · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Congress is the one doing this, not the president.

      ... at the president's request.

    3. Re:Confusion by daveywest · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Before today's vote, only 6% of the population was confused by the changeover according to Neilson Media. That means you reached 94% of the population.

      94% comprehension is a pretty good result.

      I can only imagine how many people are going to be confused by a slow, staggered changeover instead of the solid Feb. 17 deadline. Its kind of like ripping off a band aid on a hairy arm. Its a lot more painful if you do it slowly.

    4. Re:Confusion by Toonol · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Little things, en masse, are often more important than the big things.

    5. Re:Confusion by daveywest · · Score: 3, Informative

      The state (rightfully) licenses business (tv, radio, cellphone, etc.) to use various parts of the electromagnetic radio wave spectrum. The state wants to change how those airwaves are used and must coordinate changes involving hundreds of licensees.

    6. Re:Confusion by HeronBlademaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Especially confusing since stations have been shouting "FEBRUARY 17" from the rooftops for several months now.

      The same kind of people who aren't ready for it by now won't be ready for it by June. I have a sneaking suspicion that the delay is much more for the benefit of stations that aren't ready, rather than consumers.

    7. Re:Confusion by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      TO me the most important part of the bill is that I'll be able to get another card for a converter, since my last one expired.

      Yeah, more funding for the coupon program is a big part. You may be able to get another one regardless, since there's supposed to be two per household. Since an expired coupon's money goes back in the pool, you may luck out and be able to get one.

      To people worried that this is just part of a never ending cycle of delays because we'll never have everyone ready for the switch... First, this delay is much shorter than previous delays which moved the roll out date by years, so even if it more delays occur I think we can all see the change is really going to happen. Second, you have to admit that there were problems with the implementation of the roll out. The coupon program was underfunded, and confusion resulted in a lot of people who didn't need converters using coupons to get them -- I remember seeing adds on cable TV that did not specify that having cable meant you didn't need the box. Shortages of converters meant a lot of people who did need the boxes couldn't get them before their coupon expired, then couldn't get a new one because the coupon program was out of money.

      Fix those problems, let the extra publicity for the issue reach the public, give it a few months, and we should find that far fewer people are still unprepared. Yes not everyone will be and I'm perfectly happy letting the lazy suffer at that point. This is about fixing the problems the government caused by screwing up the program. If they do in fact fix the problem, they'll get most of the people who weren't ready because of those problems, and then I'll say we'll be ready for the switch.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    8. Re:Confusion by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If the state is already permitting the use of various frequencies for commercial companies, surely those companies should be able to use those frequencies as they see fit. Legislating that they must go from analog to digital at all is spitting in the face of the liberties of those companies. IMO the whole digital/analog thing should be up to the free market, NOT the state.

      The problem with this is the phrase "those companies." Different companies bid on different frequencies, for different uses, at different times. Nobody gets to buy a frequency forever. The only alternative to state allocation of specific frequencies for specific uses is a free-for-all in which everyone broadcasts whatever they want at whatever frequency they want and whatever power they can afford, and you end up with interference on every channel. Nobody wins in such a scenario. The current auction model may be broken, but the idea that "the market" can solve this particular problem runs up smack against the laws of physics.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    9. Re:Confusion by nabsltd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      With a hard cutoff date and no option to switch before that day, far less people would be confused.

      As it is, now you are adding people who already have ATSC receivers to the "likely confused", as they will have to keep track of exactly when each station switches and how that station switches (changing frequency, power level, transmitter location, virtual channel, etc.).

      In addition, automatically programmed devices (like the HD TiVo) will have to change the virtual to physical mapping at different times for each station. In some cases, the stations will choose to re-brand with the new permanent channel because that old channel could now be opened up. Think of the confusion if some new station ends up on channel 4 while "NBC 4" is broadcasting on channel 48.

      The thing that is most stupid is that the original plan wasn't to do the cutover on a Saturday afternoon. What possible reason could there be to make Tuesday the changeover day?

    10. Re:Confusion by Matt · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not really.

      If you have your converter, you won't notice. No confusion.
      If you don't then you may seem some stations go away.

      It's not that easy. TV stations in the VHF-High band (channels 7-13) are currently transmitting the digital version of themselves in the higher UHF channels. After they stop their analog transmissions, they'll move their digital transmissions to their VHF-High channels.

      Thus many major stations (4 out of the 7 big VHF stations here) will move around after the transition. Now that transition will be gradual and not so predictable. Stations will be moving around, and we'll have to keep rescanning or otherwise updating our tuners, either in converter boxes or new TVs.

    11. Re:Confusion by agm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem isn't so much the way the state decides who gets to use which frequencies at which time based on an auction model - the problem is with the state then dictating what those frequencies are used for. Once a company has successfully bid for the usage of a slice of the radio-waves for a certain period, it should be completely up to them what they broadcast.

    12. Re:Confusion by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you look at the voting rolls (and listen to the speeches), you can see that this is a case of the Democrats falling-in-line behind Democrat Obama's wishes. 95% of them voted "yes" while only 5% of Republicans joined them. The Republicans (rightly) decided the delay was not necessary, but instead proposed simply handing-out more coupons to help people buy boxes.

      As for the speeches, it was amusing: "We must postpone the analog switchoff because it we don't, emergency responders won't be able to hear their calls." - Um what?!?!? Clearly the Congresswoman who said this has no idea what she's voting for. They're just obediently falling into line as commanded by their Democrat Speaker of the House. "We have to support Obama and he wants to delay the analog switchoff, so vote yes even if you don't understand what it's about."

      I was happy when I heard this Democrat from California: "I suspect another motive. I suspect President Obama's decision to delay DTV comes from his new advisor - a man who works for Clearchannel Communications that purchased channels 52 to 69. It's not about helping the people, but about helping a corporation. We should investigate this further."

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    13. Re:Confusion by commodore64_love · · Score: 3, Informative

      There's a limited amount of space on the EM Band, therefore the government has to enforce rules just the same as it enforces rules on roads. Without rules, you'd have chaos with some stations showing analog, others digital, and likely with lots of interference. By placing the FCC in charge, you eliminate the "crashes" of overlapping stations.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    14. Re:Confusion by commodore64_love · · Score: 3, Informative

      President Obama *pressured* Congress to pass a law to delay the switchover.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    15. Re:Confusion by walt-sjc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Holy shit. In other words, Obama can do no wrong... Like the fact that he, like his good buddy Bush, still supports warrant-less domestic spying on Americans and granting immunity to the telcos - but it's OK *NOW*, he is a Democrat! And Bush was the devil!

      Here is a giant freakin cluebat. Obama is NOT the black Jesus Christ come to save the world. Don't get me wrong, our other option for Pres. was no better, but decisions like this (DTV delay) are just fucking stupid, and the majority of congress support this stupidity.

      Now there are many good reasons for supporting Obama and that's FINE! This, however, isn't one of them.

  3. Many stations switchin anyway... by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    All the stations in my area have already announced they're going Digital Feb 17th no matter what. Electricity for those analog towers isn't cheap. I've heard of some markets that have already turned off their analog. Instead of one huge cut off, it'll more than likely be a trickle of stations until June.

    I did like the suggestion I saw last time this came up about making it go B&W for 90 days prior to the switch. Although I personally thought it would be more motivating if you cut off the last 10 minutes of an hour long show with a spoof of Peanut Butter Jelly Time.

    It's Digital TV time, Digital TV time, Digital TV time

    (Chorus:)
    Where the show at 4x
    There it go 4x
    Digital TV 4x
    Do the Digital TV, Digital TV,
    Digital TV with a digital converter 2x

    1. Re:Many stations switchin anyway... by BorgAssimilator · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I applaud those stations. The confusion coming from the government is _not_ being fair to the television stations.

      --
      "Intelligence has nothing to do with politics!"
      -Londo Mollari
    2. Re:Many stations switchin anyway... by Knara · · Score: 4, Informative

      One of the PBS stations in Denver had a problem that shut down their analog tower in December. They decided it wasn't worth it to fix it, and so have been running crawls all last month about how they're DTV only now.

    3. Re:Many stations switchin anyway... by BorgAssimilator · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Um... the TV stations should be able to do whatever the hell they want. If they screw up, they'll pay for it by people not watching them which could lead them going out of business, but that doesn't mean that people have a right to tell the company what to do directly.

      --
      "Intelligence has nothing to do with politics!"
      -Londo Mollari
    4. Re:Many stations switchin anyway... by JamesP · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Their first and foremost responsibility is to the citizens as a whole.

      Screw the stations. If enough people protested this, then they should revoke the whole digital broadcasting.

      But this is TEEEVEEE

      It's not about people's liberties, human rights, jobs, salary, etc It's the fscking soma machine

      Let's worry and spend money where it really matters, like, I dunno, healthcare, education, etc, etc

      And if you want TV so bad fork the $50 dollars or something. Can't afford it and doesn't have a coupon!? Well, if you couldn't bother to pay attention in sonething that was advertised for the last COUPLE OF YEARS.

      --
      how long until /. fixes commenting on Chrome?
    5. Re:Many stations switchin anyway... by nabsltd · · Score: 4, Informative

      The FCC has rules about how many hours of things like public service you have to run to keep your license.

      Until February 17, the calculation comes from the analog signal.

      So, a station could have just killed the analog early without getting special FCC approval, but then they would have lost their license for both analog and digital.

      Likewise, a station can just choose to "go dark", but if they don't meet the FCC regulations, they won't have a license an more if they want to turn back on again. Since good frequencies are worth money (both in the ability to cover more area and in branding goodwill for channel numbers), most would be snapped up by someone else pretty quickly, like domains that expire.

  4. Washington comes together... by korney · · Score: 5, Funny

    Washington comes together, bails out the bunny ear industry.

    1. Re:Washington comes together... by geekoid · · Score: 4, Funny

      Playboy is in trouble? Better renew my subscription~

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    2. Re:Washington comes together... by sexconker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      http://goreadgreen.com/
      Sign up for playboy or other magazines (zinio version) for free for 1 year with just your email address.

      Sign up for tons using the dot.ted.add.ress@gmail.com trick, and use them on your single zinio account.

  5. House vote: 264-158 by Goobergunch · · Score: 4, Informative

    The House vote on this, for those interested, was 264-158. The details of which representative voted which way is on the House website.

    1. Re:House vote: 264-158 by plasmacutter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is nothing the Dem's haven't done for years. Yeah! High School Politics!!!

      False.

      In most votes on bush policy you had considerable support from the other side of the aisle.

      The minute the situation is reversed the republicans pull this "not one vote, no matter what" crap.

      This kind of "partisan for the sake of it" garbage is the reason why they continue to lose seats. Here's hoping they lose more and more each election until they learn being the opposition doesn't mean getting in the way for the sake of getting in the way.

      The democrats were voted in overwhelmingly. This means the public wants what the democrats offered in their policy platforms. It's the republican's jobs to offer their perspective and grounding to that platform, not blindly rail against it tooth and nail.

      This means instead of saying "no universal healthcare", they should be saying "If the public wants it, this is how it should work"

      --
      VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
    2. Re:House vote: 264-158 by commodore64_love · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >>>The democrats were voted in overwhelmingly. This means the public wants what the democrats offered in their policy platforms. It's the republican's jobs to offer their perspective and grounding to that platform, not blindly rail against it tooth and nail.
      >>>

      Um. No. Your comment displays annoying arrogance, because MY republican representative won with a solid 80% majority. HIS job is to follow the wishes of us, his constituents, not your wishes. I am THRILLED that he voted "no" and if he keeps-up the good job, we'll give him another 80% majority in 2010!

      As for partisanship, it was the Democrats who blindly followed Obama's wished to delay the transition. Most of them, based upon their speeches, had no clue what they were supporting! They were just lining-up behind their leader. ----- I think Obama's a smart man, but I think this particular idea was stupid. 95% of the populace is ready; there's no need to delay.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  6. Screw the protesters by HornWumpus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What are they going to do vote the head of the FCC out? (the FCC head is appointed).

    People with time on their hands to protest are generally useless anyhow. The fact they haven't gotten it together to prepare for the switch reinforces that for me.

    I hope they are going to compensate the new owners of the bandwidth for the delay.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  7. In other news... by RockMFR · · Score: 5, Funny

    Trials for Gitmo prisoners delayed until they are no longer a threat to the United States.

    Paying back the national debt delayed until someone can force us to do so.

    Fixing social security delayed until Baby Boomers die.

    Puppy for Obama children delayed until after the next election.

  8. So tune in again... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...June 1, when they'll postpone it again!

  9. This shit right here by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is why America never went metric.

    --

    Technoli
  10. IDIOCY!!! by cdrguru · · Score: 3, Insightful

    First off, if anyone was really worried about losing marketshare or advertising dollars, it is way, way too late to do anything about that now.

    If you recall, they already sold off the spectrum. Sure, they can force new services to delay implementation for a while - but THEY SOLD OFF THE SPECTRUM. Analog television broadcasting is dead, and unless they are going to pay Verizon back their $700 million or so, it is really dead and really soon.

    Sure, there is a substantial chance that a lot of people when faced with the decision to go to cable or satellite will chose "none of the above" because their rural location is underserved by DTV signals. Gosh, someone should have thought of that before. Guess what? I'd say they did and decided it was a small enough portion of the overall viewers that it doesn't matter what they do. If you aren't in a major metro area, chances are you are looking at either a much bigger antenna, cable or satellite. Or YouTube. I think you are going to see a lot of people outside of metro areas just turning the TV off and turning it on to play DVDs.

    I don't see how any four-month "delay" that is optional is going to make much difference. This might have been a sap to a few stations trying to say they weren't ready, still. But there is no way this is going to help your average viewer - they are either ready or they are forgotten.

    And the stupid coupon program isn't coming back either.

  11. Not as simple as it sounds by Zhiroc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I wasn't very keen on the delay (and offhand, I don't know how effective it will be anyways). But there's something that hasn't been discussed much. As I was reading this article, I've learned that it's not just the tuner. Some people may have to change their antenna. The DTV switch moves the signal to the UHF bands, and if you have experience with broadcast TV, you'll know that UHF does not have the range of VHF, and needs a special antenna (a "bow-tie" if I remember) to get the best reception. February is a terrible time to have to go up on a roof in the north... So, I can see some merit in the delay. Even with a better antenna, it could be that no reception is possible for some rural customers, which is a whole different issue.

  12. Re:Money Confusion by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As an early adopter I want to correct some myths:

    - Yes initially the boxes were rare, however by April 2008 the stores & online retailers were filled with tons of boxes. "I can't found one" is a pisspoor excuse.

    - No the initial boxes were not crap. Zenith boxes were available as early as February 2008, and most folks at avsforum.com say it's the best box you can buy. People like me who bought a Zenith were not screwed.

    - Right now stores are overflowing with boxes, and even so ~50% of coupon holders don't use them. Why are half of people applying for coupons they never intend to use? It makes no sense.

    - Even without a coupon, you can buy a $40 box from dtvpal.com or a $50 box from Kmart. That's not much more expensive than taking the family to a restaurant, and if you can afford that, then you can afford a box.

    - According to Nielsen, only 5% are unprepared and they are largely teens and 20-somethings who probably don't watch TV and therefore don't care. They are spending their dollars on new forms of entertainment like the internet.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall