Obama Recommends Delay in Digital TV Switch

[Bucc 4]

lets hope!

[DMA 134]

I just heard that the 650m coupon extension is included in the Main Street Bailout.

[Que 73]

"Are you ready? This February..."

 

Oh wait, lets spend millions more in telling you the date has changed! Biggest waste of time and money. Hopefully the House rejects this bill.

[DMA 134]

The main problem is that people procrastinate. Secondly, if the coupons were sufficiently funded in the first place, we wouldn't be in this situation. Hopefully some stations shut down on the original date.

[Weeters 1804]

Let me rant here for a moment.

 

Here we see one of the many problems of the Government. We have bills that sit around for months before they are passed, but this bill has been in the system for, what, a week? And there's reports that this whole thing could be done by the end of this week! This really shows where the governments priorities are. Is making sure little 93 year-old Ethel Finkelmeyer can continue to watch Frontline on PBS more important than fixing our economy? Obviously, making sure people can watch TV is more important than making sure people have the money to afford those TVs.

 

And now I read that there may be a conflict of interest on, surprisingly, the Obama transition team of all places! Oh, the irony!

 

First, let's take a look at the definition of Lobbying and Lobbyist. Wikipedia says "Lobbying is the practice of influencing decisions made by government. It includes all attempts to influence legislators and officials, whether by other legislators, constituents or organized groups. A lobbyist is a person who tries to influence legislation on behalf of a special interest or a member of a lobby."

 

If you believe' date=' then we can tell the lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. [/url']

Looks to me that he's been lobbied right into this from someone on his own transition team.

 

(in b4 "Not a registered lobbyist", ect.)

[ElliotJones 52]

Here we see one of the many problems of the Government. We have bills that sit around for months before they are passed, but this bill has been in the system for, what, a week?

 

[Weeters 1804]

[stevieboy247 42]

[WickedYoungMan 0]

Sorry if someone already made this suggestion. If I had to make a compromise, I would suggest that the stations drop regularly scheduled broadcasts on the analog feeds just as planned in February (with exclusive broadcast on digital beginning,) but suggest they broadcast a message on their analog signals with information about the DTV switch, with the phone number for the coupons, etc. The digital ready people wouldn't see this obviously, but those still on analog would, and they would get the idea they need to do something to watch regular televison again. Keep the analog message up until their proposed delay date then go silent completely.

[DMA 134]

There already is a provision for that, for a month after Feb. 17th. It would only work on certain station, which have spectrum that won't mess up the neighboring markets.

 

BTW, it didn't pass the House.

[Geoffrey 779]

House votes against the delay... surprising to me.

 

http://wcbstv.com/breakingnewsalerts/House.bill.digital.2.920100.html

 

So it's dead now?

[gameshowguy2000 1]

I don't see why the House was against delaying the digital TV switch..Obama said it himself, not everyone's ready for it and not everyone got a coupon to buy a converter box. Heck, my dad was asking if they're gonna be issuing any more coupons, and I said I don't know.

[DMA 134]

The problem is that the coupon program was underfunded. I would have been for the delay, but it would have been at the expense of emergency services.

[mbhcity 3]

House votes against the delay... surprising to me.

 

http://wcbstv.com/breakingnewsalerts/House.bill.digital.2.920100.html

 

So it's dead now?

 

Pretty Much...it's still February 17......Sorry,

 

to quote a San Francisco Mayor

 

"It's gonna happen, whether you like it or not!"

[Geoffrey 779]

The House just passed the delayed DTV switch bill and it now goes to President Obama for signing.

 

So it's going to be delayed until June 12th.

 

A huge mistake, I think.

 

But it was fun watching C-SPAN!

[ib-td 1]

A huge mistake, I think.

 

 

I agree!!

[rjdickens 1]

It needed to be done.

NTIA was just one more screwup by Bush. The FCC never knew what NTIA was doing, and the political flunkies at NTIA never bothered looking at the laws to consider that 80 percent of the converter boxes they approved were illegal to begin with.

Hopefully, Chairman Genachowski sees fit to revive former Chairman Martin's "safe harbor" plan for LP and Class A... and the FCC does what it can to accelerate the rate of approvals for those stations to go digital (we got ours, thank God... just waiting on parts).

Otherwise, if the CBA gets its day in court, it's gonna be one whale of a cluster when the courts throw out 80 percent of the boxes on the market and order retailers to honor exchanges.

And as for the poster who remarked earlier that the courts wouldn't uphold a law enacted in 1957: Hey, I was enacted in 1957... and I still don't work too bad

[Ntropolis 593]

WQAD already announced they'll be making the switch on the 17th...

 

http://www.wqad.com/Global/story.asp?S=9761549

 

Wonder how many angry letters they'll receive from the lazy people waiting on Obama to give them their coupon... welfare for TV, I tell ya

[Weeters 1804]

That would be the Swiss 721 font family.

[Weeters 1804]

http://rabbitears.info/termlist.php

[gameshowguy2000 1]

Well, whoever thinks it's a bad idea to delay the switch, that's your opinion.

 

But..as I said before, not everyone's bought a converter box or even gotten a coupon to buy one (anybody know how much they cost these days? I really haven't been paying attention to the prices).

[caliwxdude 252]

Wonder how many angry letters they'll receive from the lazy people waiting on Obama to give them their coupon... welfare for TV, I tell ya

 

It's not welfare. I applied for, and received, two coupons back in 2007. Of those two, I only used one to purchase a converter box to put on a TV at my grandma's place which is in a room without a cable outlet.

 

Notice I applied for them in 2007, which is what everyone should have done who was using an antenna TV. It took about a month to get them, during which I'm sure even those on low or fixed incomes could have saved up the $20 to make up the difference between the actual MSRP and the price after the coupon. It's just ignorance and idiocy that people weren't ready by now.

 

Of the Bay Area stations, so far only KOFY and KICU have publicly announced their intentions to end analog service on February 17. I'd expect a few others to follow in their footsteps within the coming days. Interesting that it appears the entire San Diego market will still be going digital on the 17th, and that every station in Sacramento appears to be retaining its analog service.

[Ntropolis 593]

It's not welfare. I applied for, and received, two coupons back in 2007. Of those two, I only used one to purchase a converter box to put on a TV at my grandma's place which is in a room without a cable outlet.

 

Notice I applied for them in 2007, which is what everyone should have done who was using an antenna TV. It took about a month to get them, during which I'm sure even those on low or fixed incomes could have saved up the $20 to make up the difference between the actual MSRP and the price after the coupon. It's just ignorance and idiocy that people weren't ready by now.

 

Of the Bay Area stations, so far only KOFY and KICU have publicly announced their intentions to end analog service on February 17. I'd expect a few others to follow in their footsteps within the coming days. Interesting that it appears the entire San Diego market will still be going digital on the 17th, and that every station in Sacramento appears to be retaining its analog service.

 

I'll admit I was exaggerating a bit, but I agree that people should have applied for their coupons earlier, so if additional funding was needed, the government would have known sooner. The marketing campaign for the digital switch should have started sooner... when did they start running the PSAs?

[ib-td 1]

It's not welfare. I applied for, and received, two coupons back in 2007. Of those two, I only used one to purchase a converter box to put on a TV at my grandma's place which is in a room without a cable outlet.

 

Notice I applied for them in 2007, which is what everyone should have done who was using an antenna TV. It took about a month to get them, during which I'm sure even those on low or fixed incomes could have saved up the $20 to make up the difference between the actual MSRP and the price after the coupon. It's just ignorance and idiocy that people weren't ready by now.

 

Of the Bay Area stations, so far only KOFY and KICU have publicly announced their intentions to end analog service on February 17. I'd expect a few others to follow in their footsteps within the coming days. Interesting that it appears the entire San Diego market will still be going digital on the 17th, and that every station in Sacramento appears to be retaining its analog service.

 

Im sorry, this whole idea seems like a South Park episode - live.

[tyrannical bastard 3442]

I thought that January 1, 2008 was the earliest you could have applied for coupons. That was when the website to apply for them became active. I applied that morning and got my coupons about 3 months later.