I get yet another chance to say I-told-you-so. A couple of years ago, when I first started writing about this subject, I predicted that Congress wouldn’t have the guts to go through with a scheme it approved in 1996 to replace analog TV broadcasts with new digital technology. At least not with the kind of underfunded, rinky-dink program lawmakers concocted to allegedly protect the poor and elderly viewers who have the most to lose from the switchover.

Only than a week after House Republicans blocked a four-month delay in the nation’s switch from analog to digital TV broadcasts, Democrats revived the measure Wednesday and pushed it through the lower chamber, assuring that millions of analog TVs will not go dark on Feb. 17.

By a 264-158 vote, largely along party lines, the House enacted a Senate-passed measure extending the deadline until June 12. The Obama administrations supports the bill and the President is expected to sign it quickly.

The wording allows local broadcasters to turn off their analog transmitters before June 12 if they notify the FCC and the public well in advance. Most have been broadcasting on both analog and digital transmitters for more than a year now, at considerable expense, and few have budgeted for the extra kilowatts they’ll need to keep both signals going through the extension.  But it’s doubtful many stations will jump in advance of deadline and risk losing a chunk of their audience to competitors who keep both transmitters humming. › Continue reading…

If your grandma’s TV goes dark on Feb. 17, you can thank Republicans in the House of Representatives, who have effectively killed off an attempt to postpone the switch to all-digital television by four months.

The measure, already approved unanimously by the Senate, had plenty of votes to pass in the House under normal circumstances. But yesterday’s  215-to-168 margin, largely split along party lines, was shy of the two-thirds majority needed to pass the bill immediately as a special measure.

If House Democrats backed by the Obama administration decide to try again, the measure delaying the switchover till June 12 could come up again next week as a regular bill – with passage virtually assured. If it doesn’t, the analog TVs in an estimated 6.5 million households will become doorstops on Feb. 17 when broadcasters turn off their analog transmitters in favor of a new generation of digital broadcasts.

Congress set the official Feb. 17 deadline back in 2005, when it also established a $1.34 billion program to provide $40 coupons to help Americans offset the cost of converter boxes that will allow  existing analog TVs to receive digital broadcasts.

This was not exactly an act of largesse, considering that the entire switchover scheme was forced on an unsuspecting public in 1996 by a bipartisan cabal of lawmakers, bureaucrats, cell phone companies, broadcasters and overseas TV equipment makers who saw an opportunity to pick our pockets in the name of technological progress. There was virtually no consumer demand for digital TV, and the most of the billions of dollars consumers have spent on new digital equipment to deal with the switchover have gone to bolster the bottom lines of foreign manufacturers — and increase an already staggering U.S. trade deficit.

Making a bad situation worse, the coupon program ran out of money — or depending on how you look at things, the program can’t use a big chunk of the money appropriated for it until unused coupons it has already issued reach their 90-day expiration date. New coupons can then be sent to millions on of Americans who found themselves on a waiting list, but few are likely to get them by the Feb. 17 cutoff.

Most of the 6.5 million households that will go dark are occupied by the poor and elderly. These constitutencies haven’t exactly turned out in droves for Republicans in recent elections, which may explain the GOP’s willingness to cut them off. In fact, Republicans opposed Democratic attempts to provide more money back in 2005 when the transition legislation was enacted. So it seems ab it strange that a group of GOP lawmakers has sponsored a bill providing an extra $250 million for converters now that it’s too late. Conscience money? Or am I just a cynic?

On the other side of the issue are most of the nation’s commercial broadcasters, who have been transmitting on both analog and digital systems for years and are anxious to turn off their expensive, power-hungry analog equipment. Many haven’t budgeted money to continue dual transmissions after Feb. 17 (although a lot of skeptics like me have predicted just the kind of imbroglio that’s now occurring).

Caught in the middle are the nation’s public television stations. Like their commercial counterparts, they’re spending big bucks they’d rather use elsewhere on electricty to keep both broadcast systems running. But since the elderly make up a disproportionate chunk of their audience (they love PBS news and watch it over analog TVs with antenannas), public stations are likely to suffer the largest proportional loss of viewership when the switchover actually occurs.

Meanwhile, no one knows how many millions of sets — either native digital models or analog sets with converters — will lose at least one of the stations its owners now receive. When you get to the bottom line, digital signals aren’t as powerful as analog broadcasts — and they’re more subject to crosstalk and interference from hills, towers and tall buildings. In my tests with a variety of equipment in several locations around Baltimore and Washington, I couldn’t find a single combination of TV, indoor antenna and coverter box that consistently brought in all the digital stations that were available in analog. That may generate even more complaints than the lack of converter boxes.

Stay tuned!

The Washington Post had an interesting piece about disarray in the Digital TV transition program – it’s a good primer about what can go wrong when the government decides to dictate what should be decided in the marketplace.

The whole issue could turn into a nasty, partisan political battle if Republicans continue to oppose an increase in funding for a program that provides coupons worth $40 each toward the purchase of converter boxes that allow traditional analog sets to receive digital broadcasts. GOP lawmakers blocked attempts by Democrats to fund the program at higher levels when the established it several years ago. Now that money has run out (after coupons worth $1.34 billion were been distributed), millions of applicants who want them are stuck on a waiting list. There’s almost no way Congress can act in time to get coupons to them before America’s TV stations turn off their analog transmitters and switch to all-digital broadcasts on Feb. 17.

 That’s one reason why the Obama transition team has asked Congress to delay the transition past Feb. 17:  lawmakers established that deadline with legislation back in 2005 when plans for the switchover were finalized. So far, ABC is the only network to ask for a reprieve, but with the prospect of millions of sets going dark next month, they’re likely change their tune soon.

Here are the latest converter stats from the National Telecommunications Infrastructure Administration:

 Approved households that have applied = 25,332,945
Coupons requested = 47,412,320
Coupons mailed = 43,052,609
Coupons expired = 13,394,773
Coupons redeemed = 18,858,516
Coupons on wait list = 948,657
Coupons active = 10,799,320
Average daily orders last 30 days = 265,507
Average daily orders last week = 360,759
Participating retailers / Locations = 2,366 / 34,417

Meanwhile, the government and broadcasters are quietly stepping up attempts to convince viewers to consider buying new antennas to use with digital TVs and converter boxes that get signals over-the-air. The government offers no help for that, even though it may cost vany viewers hundreds or thousands of dollars for an outside antenna they’ll need to bring in the same channels they got before.

 The weekly DTV transtion press release I get from the National Association of Broadcasters offers this suggestion: “By moving your antenna to a spot just three feet away from where it currently sits can greatly improve your DTV reception.” It didn’t work in my trials. A lot of people are going to be very upset when they turn on their converters or new digital sets and realize that a lot of their old channels have disappeared. That’s because digital signals get bent out of shape by hills, buildings, towers, high bridges and other manmade objects. If you get signals over-the-air,  with an antenna, check out www.antennaweb.org for advice on buying a new one. Stay tuned (if you can).

Will you lose your signal?

Yes, I told you so. If you’ve followed my rants on the subject, you’ll remember my prediction at the transition to digital TV – just five weeks away as I write this – would be a disaster in the making. Well, that prediction is coming true.

After months of assurances from government agencies and industry flacks that plans for the DTV transition were going great guns, President Elect Barrack Obama has asked Congress to delay the switchover, now scheduled for Feb. 17.

The reason: millions of perfectly good analog TVs will go dark because they can’t receive the new transmissions and won’t have converter boxes attached. Those are boxes the American public has to pay for – and a $1.34 billion subsidy program to help viewers buy them has run out of cash with more than 7 million households still at risk.

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Worried about the details of making your ancient analog TV receive those new digital signals? So are lots of of other people. One of them is Spike Feresten, host of the eponymously named “Talk Show with Spike Feresten.” Particularly concerned with the effect of the transition on the elderly — who will bear a disproportionate share of the hassle and expense  — Spike produced this inspirational video on installing a DTV converter box. He only thought it was a parody.

Happy Holidays to all!

It’s hard to avoid Digital TV Transition ads these days. With less than two months till the nation’s TV stations switch to a new, all-digital transmission scheme, broadcasters and government officials are running thousands of public service advertisements warning viewers that unless they take action, millions of sets may turn into doorstops on Feb. 17.

Some stations are even running half-hour shows discussing the DTV transition and telling viewers how to buy and install converter boxes for their existing analog sets. Others are telling people how to find new digital TVs with tuners that can receive the new signals on their own.

All these ads make the process look deceptively easy, but unfortunately, it won’t be easy for everyone. In fact, after Feb. 17, a small but significant minority of viewers will never again be able to get the same variety of programming they get now. Some will have to spend hundreds of dollars for rotating outdoor antennas to match the reception they get today from the $3 rabbit ears that came with their old analog TV sets. Even then, the dirty little secret of digital broadcasting is that it won’t reach as many TV sets as the analog system we’ve used for the better part of seven decades.

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For months I’ve been getting complaints from readers who say some of their favorite cable TV channels are disappearing. Depending on where they live it may be Discovery, or MSNBC or some other cable-only channel with a dedicated,  if not overwhelmingly large following. The cable company tells customers it has moved the channel to its “digital tier.” If viewers want to  see the channel again, they’ll have to rent a digital cable box for $10 a month.

A lot of victims think this is part of the great DTV Switchover, and they blame the government. But it’s not. It’s a case of cable companies trying to wring a few extra dollars out of their subscribers without raising overall rates and free up more bandwidth for the high-definition broadcasts that their premium customers want. Here’s the story: › Continue reading…