WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate passed a bill on Monday to delay the nationwide switch to digital TV signals, giving consumers nearly four more months to prepare.

The transition date would move to June 12 from February 17 under the bill that was fueled by worries that viewers are not technically ready for the congressionally-mandated switch-over.

It also would allow consumers with expired coupons, available from the government to offset the cost of a $40 converter box, to request new coupons. The government ran out of coupons earlier this month, and about 2.5 million Americans are on a waiting list for them.

Senate Commerce Chairman John Rockefeller said delaying the TV switch is the right thing to do because the United States is not yet ready to make the transition.

"The Senate acted responsibly to give the Obama administration time to attempt to bring order to a mismanaged process," the West Virginia Democrat said in a statement.

Many lawmakers worry that an estimated 20 million mostly poor, elderly and rural households are not ready for the switch, which requires owners of older television sets receiving over-the-air signals to buy a converter box or subscribe to cable or satellite TV.

Broadcasters are moving from analog to digital signals to give public safety officials more spectrum, especially useful for emergencies, and to improve viewing quality.

Momentum had been building for a delay since President Barack Obama backed it earlier this month.

The digital TV bill also would extend the licenses of AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications, which are waiting for the airwaves to be vacated when all TVs convert.

The companies, which paid $16 billion for the public airwaves in an auction last year, would get 116 extra days on their licenses under the proposed legislation.

CTIA, the wireless trade association, has said a delay could hurt confidence in the FCC's spectrum auctions.

(Reporting by Kim Dixon, Editing by Toni Reinhold and Carol Bishopric)
[Edited 1/28/09 11:48am]
[Edited 1/30/09 13:37pm]

It's about time. They should delay this switch, because the government (i.e., the prior Bush administration) did a piss poor job of informing people about the digital switch in the first place. On top of that, cable companies and electronics manufacturers were deliberately misinforming consumers about the cable TV switch in order to get people to subscribe to their overpriced digital cable packages or buy expensive HDTV sets. Plus with thousands of people losing their jobs and/or homes in this economy, it's not a good time to be forcing people to buy new TVs or expensive cable and/or satellite packages. At least now, we can get some real information about the switch and actually do it at a time that won't cause great hardship for people, since not as many people watch TV over the early summer.

The only way a lot of my friends and family members initially found out about the switch was from listening to the Tom Joyner Morning Show. The crew would make announcements during rush hour, and they eventually invited someone on the show to explain the process, give away vouchers, ect. Had it not been for that I know plenty of people who would have been informed quite late about this, if at all.

I have no idea how people didn't know about it. I saw tons of commercials about it here in Chicago for at least the last six months. Now, the only way I see they fucked up was not having enough coupons available for people. I guess they forget that people have more than one analog televisions in their homes. Hell, we have 3 but fortunately, we have digital cable already.

I agree with you Pill. It's all a rip-off.

Vendetta1 said:

I don't get this either. The local news here has done sooooo many stories on this for the last YEAR and have been conducting signal tests for the last six months, plus there've been tons of commercials. The people that don't know about this obviously don't watch TV any damn way.

eh, they planned on delaying it long ago.
the dead line was just to get peoples asses in gear.
the delay is purposeful for those who yet didnt get their asses in gear.

of note, im concerned about this annoying sound i hear on some tv shows and commercials. it really bothers me. like when an appliance is running or something. its this sharp pulsing ring.

728huey said:

While the economic reason you mention is a good point (sorta), for chrissakes, man, I saw tv stations in the bay area advertise the "countdown to digital" every day for the last three months. Just how much more clear do things have to be for people? Just because retail companies were misleading consumers, that doesn't mean that people can't do a little independent research themselves, yes? Jeeeeez.....

eaglebear4839 said:

other countries managed to do it already
and some are doing it bit by bit - not the whole country at once


an onscreen warning like this leading up to the switch off should prompt folks into action!

there will still be people who are clueless and unprepared in june.

NEW YORK – Delaying the upcoming digital TV transition for four months would cost public broadcasters $22 million, the PBS system chief estimated on Monday.

Paula Kerger, president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting System, said she hopes lawmakers keep that in mind as they consider legislation to delay the switch from Feb. 17 to June 12.

The stations will face increased power charges to maintain over-the-air broadcast signals, she said. Many have leases for signal transmitters that were due to expire on the date of the switch over and will have to make new arrangements, she said.

"This is such a tough situation for our stations because they have just gone through a process where they have raised the money to go through this transition," she said.

The Obama administration has sought the delay because the government program to provide coupons for converter boxes needs more money. The boxes are needed for people without cable or satellite TV to continue receiving TV signals after the conversion date. The latest estimate is that more than 6.5 million households are not prepared for the switch over.

The National Association of Broadcasters has not taken a position on extending the deadline. The TV stations don't want to suddenly alienate and lose viewers, but they've also sunk money into preparing for the Feb. 17 transition.

Kerger said that PBS is not supporting either side, but he doesn't want PBS' hardships lost among potential hardships faced by viewers.

"At the end of the day, our interest is public service and we want to make sure that people don't go without television," she said.

There's a possibility that TV networks would be allowed to choose whether to make the switch over on Feb. 17 or delay it, in which case Kerger said it's likely that PBS would allow its individual stations to choose for themselves.

In lobbying for government help to the system, Kerger noted that much of the costs for the digital transition have been paid through fundraising, which in some cases has made less money available for programming.

SCNDLS said:

I've heard about this for more than a year. There were commercials months ago informing people to get their certificate for a converter.

DTV delay bill fails in the House

House Republicans managed Wednesday to defeat the so-called "DTV delay" bill—and that means that the planned Feb. 17 date for the digital TV transition is still on, barring any last-minute maneuvering by Democrats and the Obama administration.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller's DTV delay bill—which included a series of compromises to mollify House and Senate Republicans, who've been resisting calls to push back the transition date—was passed by the Senate on Monday, and many observers (myself included) expected smooth sailing in the House.

But while the bill, which would have delayed the DTV transition date to June 12, needed a two-thirds majority to pass, according to the AP—and apparently, it fell short.

So now it's back to the drawing board for Democrats and President Obama, who have argued that too many people still aren't ready for the shutoff of analog TV signals. (The transition only affects those with analog TVs and over-the-air antennas; such viewers would need a $40-$60 DTV converter box to receive digital signals on their old TVs.)

Of course, that's a matter of debate: A recent report from Nielsen revealed that 5.7 percent of U.S. households aren't ready for the DTV transition, but some say that figure is inflated—and after all, it also means that 94.3 percent of the country is ready for digital TV.

Republicans in Congress have further argued that pushing back the DTV transtition date would only add to the confusion (no argument there, given the recent flood of TV spots announcing the Feb. 17 date), and that a delay would put an undue burden on those TV stations that have already started dismantling their analog TV equipment. Rockefeller's compromise bill included a provision allowing TV stations to make the jump to digital prior to the proposed June 12 deadline.

Meanwhile, a government coupon program that allows for two $40 DTV converter box coupons per household is still in disarray. The $1.5-billion program ran out of money earlier this month, although as unused coupons expire (after 90 days), more money flows back into the program. Still, about 2.6 million people are stuck on a waiting list, and while Obama's proposed economic stimulus plan includes $650 million in additional DTV coupon funding, there's no saying when—or if—the stimulus package will pass.

Also: Rockefeller's DTV delay bill would have allowed those who'd applied for coupons but allowed them to expire to reapply for new ones. But for now, those with expired coupons are simply out of luck.

How could anyone not have known this was going to happen. I've been bombarded by this information from news channels to commercials for almost 2 years now
I believe that 7% of the population still has not swapped, and this is what the hoopla is about. I just don't see why it should be delayed for them.
[Edited 1/28/09 12:12pm]

This swith has been on the table 4 years.....

SCNDLS said:

I knew about it in '07

i think they should just do it and get it over with already!

Can anyone break down what the point is of switching?

Vendetta1 said:

Money, Greed

Vendetta1 said:

In a nutshell, digital has more bandwidth than the currently used analog.

Why are we switching to DTV?

An important benefit of the switch to all-digital broadcasting is that it will free up parts of the valuable broadcast spectrum for public safety communications (such as police, fire departments, and rescue squads). Also, some of the spectrum will be auctioned to companies that will be able to provide consumers with more advanced wireless services (such as wireless broadband).

Consumers also benefit because digital broadcasting allows stations to offer improved picture and sound quality, and digital is much more efficient than analog. For example, rather than being limited to providing one analog program, a broadcaster is able to offer a super sharp “high definition” (HD) digital program or multiple “standard definition” (SD) digital programs simultaneously through a process called “multicasting.” Multicasting allows broadcast stations to offer several channels of digital programming at the same time, using the same amount of spectrum required for one analog program. So, for example, while a station broadcasting in analog on channel 7 is only able to offer viewers one program, a station broadcasting in digital on channel 7 can offer viewers one digital program on channel 7-1, a second digital program on channel 7-2, a third digital program on channel 7-3, and so on. This means more programming choices for viewers.

If 2.5 million are unprepared for it, it should be delayed.

dreamfactory313 said:

Why? That's only 5% of the country.

SCNDLS said:

actually less than 1%

NDRU said:

Well, actually, the article above says that almost 95% of the country is prepared.

SCNDLS said:

okay, but I wasn't just trying to say your math is wrong, I was agreeing with you that if only 2.5 million aren't prepared, then most of the country is prepared
[Edited 1/28/09 16:52pm]

SCNDLS said:

Its still a sizeable amount of people. Many people don't even know about the change, many of them elderly.

dreamfactory313 said:

maybe, but to be fair, my grandmother still has problem with remote control.

NDRU said:

my grandma is allergic to her set-top box
so she gave her tv away instead, problem solved

Okay, I guess I have to break it down further about why the prior administration did such a shitty job in advising the general public about the switch to digital television. Yes, they initially informed the country about three years ago that all broadcast analog TV signals would be switching to digital transmission, but they did not inform people about how this would affect their current viewing habits. The Bush administration initially put up a bunch of commercials talking about the switch but failed to give any further information other than to tell people to call a phone number or go to the DTV website. The Bush administration basically left the initial heavy lifting of informing the public about the digital switch to the broadcasters, the cable and satellite providers, and the electronics manufacturers and retailers. As you would expect, all of these entities had their own agenda, and a lot of misinformation was put out to the general public.

Basically, the switch to digital television comes down to two things; the type of television set one has in their home, and the type of broadcast signal they receive to watch television. Now most people in this country actually receive their broadcast TV signals via cable, but even that has differences in whether they receive basic analog cable or digital cable. (But I'll get back to that later.) A few people receive their signals via satellite, and others by fiber optic lines (e.g., Verizon FIOS, AT&T Uverse). The rest get their TV over the airwaves. As for the actual TV sets, the great majority of viewers watch TV on an analog TV set, which means that their TV set is set up to receive TV signals over the NTSC broadcast format. In addition, a lot of older VCRs which have built-in TV channel tuners are also on analog format, and the early DVD recorders with tuners are also analog. Since a lot of people probably have TV sets which range from 27 inches to 36 inches that are at least 8 to 10 years old, they are getting their main entertainment from an analog TV.

Now it was about seven years ago when the major electronics manufacturers began making TV sets with digital TV tuners under the ATSC format. This was primarily to accommodate the rise of HDTV. The early digital and HDTV sets were CRT sets, which meant that they used the same picture tube technology that older TV sets had. But about five years ago the electronics companies began full-scale manufacturing of flat panel TV sets, first in plasma but then LCD TV sets. Because they were easier to manufacture than the old CRT sets, plus becoming wildly popular with the general public, the electronics manufacturers began making almost exclusively flat panel TV sets. These TV sets came with a digital TV tuner already built into the set. While these flat panel TV sets cost a couple thousand dollars at first, the price came down dramatically as more flat panel TV sets came into the market.

In 2006 the federal government mandated that all broadcast TV stations switch their broadcast signal from analog to digital by February, 2009. However, there was no initial guidance on how this would affect the general public. No one mentioned any distinction on how it would affect broadcast viewers as opposed to cable or satellite viewers, and literally no information was given about the differences in the strength of the broadcast signal between analog and digital, which is actually rather important. While all broadcast signals, whether analog or digital, can be affected by the terrain they are broadcast over as well atmospheric conditions (i.e., rain, snow, storms, etc.), a weak analog signal will come in fuzzy, distorted and with a snowy picture, while a weak digital signal may not come in at all. This could be a huge problem in areas that have mountains or in dense urban housing populations.

Now the reason that most people watch their TV through cable providers is because the broadcast signal in most urban areas is usually distorted because of large buildings blocking the signal, not to mention having to compete with radio and cellular phone signals. With the digital signal, if you can get a strong signal from the broadcaster, then you will get a much better picture and sound than with analog, and the HDTV signal is especially good. But a weak signal may not be picked up, and you will simply get a black or blue screen where the TV channel should be.

Now if you have an analog TV, and you get your TV signal via satellite or fiber optic (DirecTV, dish Network, Verizon FIOS, AT&T Uverse), then this digital switch means nothing to you, as you already need a special digital receiver to watch TV, regardless of the type of TV set you have. If you have a flat panel TV, then the digital switch will not affect you, because you TV is set to receive digital signals already. If you get your TV signal via cable, then it really depends on the type of cable provider you have and the type of package you subscribe to. If you already have digital cable or subscribe to HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, or Starz, then you are already set because your cable company will require you to have a set-top box to receive premium channels. But if you have only basic analog cable (i.e., your cable is connected directly to your TV set), then you need to contact your cable company and find out whether you need to get a set-top box. In Chicago, I know that Comcast will still broadcast their signal via analog after the DTV switch date for about three more years, but other cable providers are requiring their subscribers to get a set-top box in order to watch TV,

If you have an analog TV set and you get your TV signal over the air, then you need one of those digital converter boxes to get the digital signal. The federal government set up a program for people to get coupons to buy a digital converter box from Walmart, Best Buy, and other stores so that they would be ready for the digital switch. However, these $40 coupons expired after 90 days. This went into effect last spring, but since the switch date was so far way, most people didn't sign on immediately to get the free coupons. Around Thanksgiving, however, a huge wave of people applied for these coupons, and as a result there was not enough money allocated for the extra demand. Some people decided that maybe they should just buy a digital TV set, but they didn't necessarily spend several hundred dollars for a flat panel TV set. But when they got to Walmart or Best Buy. they rather rudely found out that the only digital TV sets available for purchase were the more expensive flat panel TV sets or really small CRT sets meant for a bedroom or small space. So now you have people who can't afford to buy a flat panel TV set who are on a waiting list for a digital converter box. All of this happening while the economy is in freefall and people are losing their jobs.

I don't understand what the rush is to free up the analog spectrum. Yes, some of it is being allocated for public safety units (police, fire departments, emergency responders), but the rest of it is just being auctioned off to cellular providers who won't even have any tangible use for the spectrum until 2011. So why can't they just wait until summer?


[Edited 1/28/09 19:17pm]

728huey said:

Won't this same argument be used in July as well?