U.S. not ready for transition from analog to digital TV

U.S. not ready for transition from analog to digital TV

No matter how much lead time people are given, hundreds of thousands won’t be ready when television stations from coast to coast eventually flick the switches that will end analog TV broadcasts.

But as of today, with just about five weeks remaining until the total transition to digital television is due to take place, President-elect Barack Obama has asked Congress to extend the Feb. 17 deadline.

Congress should comply, for a number of reasons.

Because the changeover affects only viewers who depend on antennas for their TV signals, a February deadline never made sense in much of the country. Who north of the Mason-Dixon line wants to be on his roof putting up a new digital antenna in February? And while many people will find their old antennas pull in digital signals for stations they rely on, many others will find it necessary to make repairs or alterations in order to pull in a good signal.

That’s not the reason Obama gave, but it’s a valid reason for putting off the transition until June or July.

Obama’s concern is that millions of residents have not yet gotten the converter boxes that are necessary for older analog televisions to receive digital signals. To be sure, everyone has had months of warning and some might argue that those who weren’t quick to act have only themselves to blame if they are without TV. But the government-issued coupons meant to defray part of the cost of the converter have routinely taken more than a month between the time they were requested and they were received. And now the government says it has run out of money for the coupons.

Taxpayers who bought television sets years ago were paying for access to TV broadcasts on the public airwaves. They had no reason to believe that the government was going to find a way of selling access to those airwaves, and in so doing make their TV sets obsolete.

Share the wealth

The government took in a whopping $19.6 billion when it auctioned existing analog airwaves to telecommunications companies that will use them for new wireless services. But Congress allocated less than $2 billion to educate consumers about the transition and issue coupons to buy needed converter boxes. The coupons — actually they look like credit cards — are good for a discount of $40 on a box that costs $50 to $70 on the open market. Anyone who wants one or two should be able to get one and get it promptly.

Nearly 41 million coupons have been mailed out and about 13 million of those expired because they were not used within a 90-day deadline. Still, an estimated 8 million households nationwide don’t have converter boxes and most of those will not get coupons in time to meet the deadline. A disproportionate number are elderly and/or poor. They will either have to pay full price for their boxes, subscribe to cable or satellite service, buy new TVs or stare at blank screens. And those numbers do not represent second and third televisions in houses or apartments that have cable or satellite service, but don’t have all of their TVs wired for cable or satellite.

In addition, there is an environmental consideration to this changeover to which the Bush administration has paid little attention. For a variety of reasons, millions of households are likely to replace their old analog TVs with digital models and many of those people will simply put their old sets out for the trash. That’s a burden the nation’s landfills don’t need, and a more concerted effort is necessary to encourage the recycling rather than the trashing of old sets.

Congress should scrap the Feb. 17 deadline and put together a new transition plan that adequately addresses the issues that have been overlooked or given short shrift.