The Senate passed legislation that would push the Feb. 17 digital television deadline to June 12, TelevisionWeek reports. The bill passed unanimously, setting the stage for a House vote on Tuesday, TVWeek says.
—Jon Lafayette
Senate Approves New DTV D-Day
Jan 30, 2009 • Post A Comment
WTF? This the most rediculous, last-minute and reactionary plan yet from our short-sited leaders with their retarded educational metabolism. Could they have seen the demand for the converter-box coupons coming months ago and just appealed to congress for more funding for that program rather than confuse the nation with the date push-back right before the well publicized event was to happen? Now Broadcasters in rural areas who have been telling people that as of 2/17/09 they will be able to get the digital signal now running at low-power because we will then be able to switch with the analog transmission gear off and run the digital stream through our full-power hardware. Now we have to keep running one of the signals at low-power and explain the delay mess to all the viewers who have been calling in form the last several months. Gives me a headache just thinking about it.
Troy Woody
Don’t these politicians understand the problems this will cause for the stations that were prepared for the transition? Frankly, if even DirecTV, who’s subscribers do not have any issues with the transition, have been running ads often enough, I cannot imagine just how often the rest of the country is seeing ads above and beyond what we seeon broadcast stations.
I do feel for those people who either cannot afford a DTV box or a new TV, or are now on the waiting list for those coupons. The problem lies is that there has been plenty of press for this transition. Stations have devoted hours of programming and given up advertising dollars too facilitate this mandated transition date. The previous poster is completely correct by saying that these low powered stations will be forced to broadcast a dual broadcast for four more months, costing them money that they don’t have in their budgets now.
Sigh…do we have a reactionary congress now? The republicans never did anything, and now the democrats do too much too quickly? Think about the consequences before pulling the trigger on something like this.
“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”
Mark Twain
Way to go, Mr. President. You bullied our elected officials into advancing your own personal agenda. We get it, you won. Now, how about representing the United States, not the 6% that are unprepared. How’d that be? Transparency works both ways.
Sorry Congress You are once again killing commerce, and thus a path out of this economic depression.
The industry has spent perhaps a billion dollars to comply with the law. Now you are moving the date back forcing them to spend more. Do you think the reason the economy is foundering is because no one believes the rules are really the rules?