Throw the Switch Already!
So what if a few million TVs go dark during the DTV transition?
It was supposed to be a landmark day in American TV history. On Tuesday, the nation’s broadcasters were going to make a permanent switch from analog to digital TV signals, a move that would bring broadcasting into the 21st century. Changing to digital would open the door for the networks to offer the public all sorts of cool features, like extra channels (Magnum P.I. reruns!) and pay-per-view movies, not to mention a better picture—and all this without having to deal with the cable guy. The switch offered other public benefits, too. The airwaves that used to deliver fuzzy broadcasts of Oprah and Days of Our Lives would be freed up for more critical uses, like improving emergency communications during hurricanes or terrorist attacks. This shift would even lead to improved cell phone service.
Instead, most of those perks are going to have to wait another few months, and tack an additional $740 million to the cost of the already pricey transition. Why? Because Congress and President Obama fear the wrath of an infinitesimally small percentage of the population that might, for a few brief minutes, see their unprepared TV screens go dark. Older TV sets need a special converter box to receive the new digital signals, and not everyone has one yet. To hear Obama and members of Congress tell it, February 17 was going to be some sort of doomsday, like Y2K, a black hole of a moment when millions of Americans were going to suffer the unbearable misery of missing American Idol because they failed to upgrade their TVs or get converters.
The nation’s political leaders act like the brief blip that’s likely to occur in the switch from analog to digital TV qualifies as a major national crisis on par with the stock market collapse. Congress has devoted no fewer than 13 hearings to the digital transition since 2007. It’s much ado about nothing. Despite all the dire warnings about all of Puerto Rico going dark when analog signals disappear, most people have new enough TVs that they don’t need converter boxes to receive digital signals. Those who do require a box (which retail for $50 to $70) can often afford to pay for them without a coupon. In fact, for a few more dollars, they could buy a new TV that wouldn’t even need one.
And really, if there’s one thing Americans don’t need, it's a TV-watching subsidy. Nearly 85 percent of the country already has abandoned free broadcast TV for cable. (Cable viewers are not affected by the changeover from analog to digital.) The average cable customer spends more than a thousand dollars a year for it, according to the FCC. Not only will Americans pay for TV, they’ll sacrifice for it. More than half of all households whose income is below $25,000 a year have cable.
TV is not a critical necessity. You won’t die if your screen goes blank for a couple of days the way you might if your heat goes off for that long. There are other sources of news if the hurricane is coming, namely that old reliable, the radio, or, God forbid, print media. Is the government really obligated to ensure no one misses Oprah, especially when making the switch to digital offers so many other public benefits?
The so-called experts have predicted that as many as 6 million people would have gone without TV service on February 17 without some major government intervention, because they either didn’t know the change was coming or they didn't make adequate preparations for it. Among those predicted to be disproportionately affected are the elderly and low-income Latinos. Various interest groups have criticized the government’s efforts to assist those people and fret that they will lose access to important government emergency warnings. My colleague Jim Ridgeway recently bashed government officials for suggesting that nursing home residents download converter-box coupon applications off the Web, without considering that they might not have Internet access. But here’s the thing: These folks are nursing home residents! Someone else is most certainly going to fix their TVs. This is what sons-in-law are for.
And a National Association of Broadcasters’ survey [pdf] from October 2008 found that 92 percent of Latinos surveyed knew about the coming switch to digital, even if they might not have prepared for it yet. As for the large population of Latinos who live along the southwest border, while some might not be able to watch American TV without a converter, they will still be able to receive Mexican TV signals, so it’s not like they’ll be cut off from civilization.
Nonetheless, Congress wants to allow more time to get the word out about the coming transition and to give these folks more time to get converter boxes, which will, incidentally, be obsolete in the not so distant future. The government-issued coupons for these boxes ran out earlier this year and there are now long waiting lists to get them, hence the additional funding in the stimulus bill. But here's the rub: The government already has issued more than a billion dollars worth of converter-box coupons, yet only about half were redeemed. As it turned out, many people who thought they needed a box actually didn't.
Rather than issue another coupon that may or may not get used, Congress should have saved the taxpayers some money and just let broadcasters throw the switch. Americans will survive. TV, after all, is a powerful motivator. The second screens go dark, no doubt clueless TV owners will leap off the couch and find out what’s going on. It will probably take people about a nanosecond to find out what happened to Law and Order and remedy the problem, without any help from the feds.
That’s pretty much what happened in the first test. In September, Wilmington, North Carolina, volunteered to be the first market to make the full switch from analog to digital. Both the FCC and student researchers from Elon University studied the changeover closely. The Elon students, who surveyed people who called local TV stations on the day of the switch, found that the largest number of complaints did come from people over 60. But the elderly often had someone else calling on their behalf. They weren’t as isolated as the FCC might think.
Even the elderly, it turns out, will find a way to get their TVs turned back on. If they can't, the problem is not one of TV service but of larger social failings that won't be fixed with a coupon, though there's a chance it could be remedied by pulling the plug on some TVs for a while. Who knows? The digital switch might provide a unique opportunity for stitching together isolated communities. (In fact, something along those lines happened in Wilmington as people consulted with their neighbors about antenna angles, signal strength, and other aspects of the switch.) It's entirely possible that a dark TV could prompt a humanitarian intervention as people reach out for help to get their tubes turned on.
Indeed, the FCC reports [pdf] that the world did not come to an end in Wilmington the day analog died. On the first day of the transition, the agency’s DTV help line logged calls from fewer than 800 people. Of those, only nine callers weren’t aware that the digital switch was coming. Of those who knew about it but failed to take appropriate measures, the vast majority (all of 24 callers) simply forgot to get a better TV or buy a box in time.
The majority of calls were of a technical nature: Most people just couldn’t figure out how to work the converter box. Given that many people over 40 can’t program a DVD player, this shouldn’t come as a big surprise, nor does it rise to the level of a national emergency. Yet Congress has just allocated more money to pay IBM and other private contractors to field questions from people who didn’t know they needed to put a battery in the converter box remote. If those contractors would also field questions on how to program the DVD player, this might be a good idea. But for the most part, spending $2 billion in borrowed money to subsidize American couch potatoes seems absurdly wasteful at a time when people are having trouble keeping the lights on, much less the television.
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snark much?
0. It's really easy to snear at the people for whom watching TV is an important part of their life, isn't it?
1. I think the "infinitesimally small" proportion of the population that needs converter boxes actually comes to millions of viewers. According to the FCC press release you cite, over-the-air viewers in Wilmington were nearly 8% of households.
2. As an indication that I have some personal knowledge of what I'm talking about - a few months ago I bought the converter box for my elderly dad, and set it up for him. He lives in the city, and gets all the stations. I live 20 miles out of town, and without an external antenna (against the homeowner association regulations) I get only a minority of the broadcast stations.
3. Broadcast DTV has the very important advantage over cable and satellite that it is free; this advantage is becoming more relevant by the week. This morning I saw - on one of the broadcast DTV stations I do get - Paul Krugman correct Diane Sawyer on how many Americans are losing jobs per unit time - it's not 20,000 per week, it's 20,000 per DAY.
4. Which reminds me - the money being "wasted" on the conversion, and helping people deal with it, does have the advantage that it is providing jobs to people at a time when people need them. It could be worse.
5. Where's this "the converter box itself will be obsolete before long" stuff coming from, by the way? As someone involved in helping a relative, as well as myself, make this transition, I don't know what you're referring to.
A rare agreement with Republicans
It's pretty rare I agree with Republicans on --well-- pretty much anything. On this issue, though, the Democrats were wrong. Flip the switch.
Even setting aside the issues of how many people might actually be affected *and* be unable to do anything about it, there's the potential disruption and cost to businesses dependent on the scheduled availability of bandwidth Feb 18. If I had bought bandwidth, built out infrastructure, and was ready to turn on a service Feb 18, I'd have had a lawsuit against the Government submitted by the close of business the day the postponement was signed.
Must do better
I'd like to double up on mistah charley's comment 0. MJ is supposed to be a progressive voice?
I happened to see the debate about this on C-SPAN. The Democrat who was proposing the delay really had his ducks in order. Not only did he point out that the dems had consistently complained that the program was underfunded (he said there was 6 million applications for vouchers left over and no more funds), but also had letters from various emergency service organizations and the major purchasers of the bandwidth. They all agreed that a delay was in the best interest of the public.
The tone of disregard and
The tone of disregard and classism in this article is disappointing. The role of government is to protect the most vulnerable citizens over other less-vulnerable populations. Your generalizations about "other people" fixing TVs for elderly people, low-income Latinos, and most appallingly, those who spend their free time watching TV (often closely related to ideas of lower-SES people being lazy, immoral, unintelligent, etc. As evidenced by your use of the phrase "American couch potatoes") show a distinct lack of the compassion for those worse off and concern for reality over stereotypes that I had come to expect from MoJo.
Of course the world won't come to an end if the TVs of a percentage of the US go dark. But what is the harm in delaying this by a few months that incited such a disdainful article? Is the cost to the Federal government really the author's main concern? If so, what is the purpose behind the use of classist, ageist and racist stereotypes?
Please note that I mean
Please note that I mean "citizens" in the more general way of "denizens" and "populations under a state's jurisdiction" rather than "those who are legal citizens of the United States."
I sympathize
I do understand that the switch should have already been flipped but for some of these poor schmoes who were not ready for the transition, much of the time, TV is their sole form of entertainment. Perhaps going through TV withdrawal is not life-threatening, but when there is hardly any money for food, power, etc. Where would the money come from to buy the converter boxes? I understand that this isn't a major concern, but I think I would rather see the kids at home watching TV than roaming the streets getting into trouble which is prevalent in low-income households. Some families simply need more time to plan this converter box expenditure into their budgets because when you live on so little, there is no margin for error. Most well-to-do folks have no clue of this problem nor is it a concern. I sympathize for these people. It would have been nice to go digital sooner, but simultaneously, we should all look on our brothers and not think only of our own comforts and conveniences. Our country could stand to benefit from brotherhood, unity and compassion rather than only looking our for "number one." Let's put the shoe on the other foot and not look at this delay only from our own perspectives.
Why the contempt?
Why is it that when the implementation is a failure, the end-user is to blame? There are too many misconceptions and false assumptions in this article that it completely misses the real impacts of deploying a new technology without adequate planning and instead perpetuates unjustifiable criticisms against the ones being wronged.
This debacle is is project mgmt 101. The gov't gets an F as does Ms. Mencimer.
After buying a converter box
After buying a converter box to find it to be of absolutely no avail I did some research. In our neck of the woods, as we found out, no digital transmissions are available due to the nature of the terrain. I suppose that many people that live in mountainous areas will at best have to have something akin to ham rig towers in order to recieve reception, pay for satellite, or just plain suck eggs.
if you have solid arguments
if you have solid arguments to make (and i think you do), then make them -- but don't be snide. there's no reason to make rude references to popular tv shows and classic stereotypes if you have facts and logic on your side. it makes you look petty. i agree with most of the substance of your argument, but *definitely* not the style.
Digital Transition Article
REALLY disappointing that the author show so little regard for the rights of her fellow Americans and arrogantly tramples on the millions of elderly and poor Americans who DON'T have cable, who don't understand technology like she does, and can't understand why the government feels mandated to once again intrude into their lives. I have a mother in law who is alone all day with limited vision and therefore can't read. Thanks for imparting your stupidity about protecting her rights! For her and MILLONS of others like her, Stephanie, TV IS A CRITICAL NECESSITY and to say otherwise as you have reflects your total ignorance of growing old and LACK OF COMPASSION FOR THOSE LESS TECH-SAVVY THAN YOU ARE.I hope that your old age isn't viewed the same by future generations who regard your rights to accessible and easy to use technology as "unnecessary"
Don't know what you'll do then, do you??? You might not worship technology ten as much as you do now obviously!~
The point behind the government doing this right isn't about coupons. Coupons Shmoopons, Stephanie!!! It's about the right
to uninterrupted service that all of us have within reason. Your trite analysis tells me you have been outside reality for a while now. Interview some real people affected by this, and re-write this crap article that goes for journalism here at Mother Jones. I'm disppointed with MJ for publishing this nonsense too!!
TV airwaves were supposed to
TV airwaves were supposed to belong to the public. The government illegally sold our airwaves for a $19,600,000,000 profit, thus I find it hard to believe there isn't enough money to cover the cost of conversion. Instead of distributing converter boxes for free, has issued coupons that only pay for half of the box. This is "double dipping"- they profited off the sale of the airwaves, then turn around and charge the people to get their TV back. I wish fervently for a class action lawsuit to address this problem. To add insult to this situation, the government has claimed to have run out of coupons, which expire after only 30 days. What purpose could an expiration date possibly serve? How could they possibly run out of coupons?
The people that don't have digital TV are most likely those that can't afford to switch to digital TV in the first place. Elderly people and the poor are the ones who are negatively affected by this. Assuming elderly people are being well taken care of by the community at large is a dangerous one at best. Does anyone know if the Emergency Broadcast System will still air on analogue waves? I understand that private companies will have this access, but what about the public? For if it does not, this is a public health concern, not just "get with the times already". The rush to switch over is shortsighted at best, as for it doesn't harm those that already have digital TV.
Last but not least, I am concerned for the Public Broadcasting Station. This is the last bastion of unbiased public information, and I worry that their support will drop once people are already paying for TV.
television delivers people
You know, in North Korea, residents of state-built housing have radios built-in to their apartments broadcasting nonstop government propaganda. There is a volume control, but no on/off switch. It is constantly on, if even only at a low volume, transmitting agitprop, consciously or unconsciously, directly into residents' ears. And yet in the US, moronic drones actually choose to tap into this passive medium, "the drug of the nation", and hypnotize themselves into submission and subliminally acquired consumption habits. Is no one else is uncomfortable with the fact that our government is using taxpayer dollars to jump through hoops just to keep this faucet of propaganda flowing? Television delivers people to advertisers, to paraphrase Richard Serra. TV is completely and totally unnecessary in today's world, especially for any independent thinker (and, yes, even more so to folks with a computer and internet connection). I ditched cable and got Netflix a couple years ago and couldn't be happier. Life is better when you curate your own viewing habits. Down with TV!
Digital Transition
Pretty heartless article. Obviously, the writer is wealthy enough to afford cable. Unlike myself (and I'm sure many more like me) who are disabled and living on probably less in a month than the writer probably makes in a week or less. Buying cable, is NOT an option to me.
The purpose of the coupon program was to assure that nobody would have to go without television or be forced against their will (or wallet) to buy into cable. I have the proper antenna, amplifier and wasted money on a converter box. I say wasted because even with everything I was assured would guarantee that I would not be forced to do without, I will. I only get four fuzzy stations but because I live in what they call a "fringe area" I will receive nothing, zip. Guaranteed and confirmed with my local broadcasters.
I agree with the writer who pointed out the sale of the airwaves and the astronomical amount they made on them. They were not Government airwaves, they were and are, OURS.
I have a solution though. If as the writer states, that there are only a handful of us out here, for the amount the Government made on the deal, cut a deal with the cable companies. It should only be a drop in the bucket. The deal would be that the cable companies provide, at no cost, only the channels we will be forced to do without. Nothing more, no package but neither, anything less. I only get four channels and that's all I want. It would not apply to folks who are able to receive reception with the converter.
P.S. I can assure you that I will not get a refund on the worthless converter box I wasted my money on.
Just for the record, I do
Just for the record, I do not have cable, just a set of rabbit-ears from the hardware store.
thank you to everyone who
thank you to everyone who commented that they did not like this article. i was offended by a lot of the wording the reporter used, and consider the assumptions made about contemporary american luxury to be outdated. were not living on credit cards anymore, we are paying for them and its hard and if someone wants to watch tv the just fucking let them. dont diss their lifestiles and culture. im so grateful to have my job but if i had nothing and was in deep depression who knows? i hope i would be looking for work but maybe id be on my ass watching tv or living in a homeless shelter...
anyway its true that to lose airtime for even a day so many buisness would suffer. advertizing, etc. and its also a good point that when the government pushes money into this situation people end up working for that money putting it in their pocket, buying food, buying something.
but at least the site has this commenting section which allows readers to be particpants in the process of opinion forming and ideas in general.
Mother Jones, why did you
Mother Jones, why did you delete my comment... It was my first EVER, i promise i'll get better if I think people are reading them.
I recently purchased an box.
I recently purchased an box. I am having trouble hooking t up. I am not stupid - I have an advanced degree, an IQ of 160 and am 60 years old. I don't watch much TV but I like to know it is there. Most of the time I read or listen to music. But please don't assume that we are all a bunch of fools just because we don't know how to read those badly written instructional pamplets.
What's wrong with a book?
I have a few issues with the comments here. TV is a public health concern? A critical necessity? And saying it's not the end of the world if some screens go blank for a while is classist? Racist? Telling Stephanie to not look at this delay only from our own perspectives seems a lot more condescending than the article to me...
And all these "old" people folks are talking about having horrible lives without television were probably born before television existed. Think about that a little.
I may or may not agree with the snide tone the writer has taken in this article but I certainly do agree with the idea that it is a waste of taxpayer money to delay this roll out if it does indeed "need" to happen. (And I love Herman Hamilton's solution of the cable companies being required to provide the currently freely available channels to those folks in "fringe" communities.) But I DO NOT see why so many here deem television watching ability akin to food and electricity. I need to eat and pay for shelter and the heat to keep me alive in the winter. So I don't have cable. Can't afford it. It's a LUXURY item. I have a TV, though, and I certainly love to watch my public access channel so I've picked up the pesky converter box and will install it some day. But since I do other things besides watching TV like visiting friends and family, going to the museum (on free day of course), gardening, doing work in my community, and reading books and magazines (library anyone?), I probably won't get to setting it up right away. My life will not end.
Finally, someone who sees the big picture
I was a single mother, who felt extremely lucky to have social supports while attending college during my daughters toddlerhood. I have happily worked in health care for the last 15 years. I have always been boggled that the people I knew always put out big bucks for cable. Why? There was always a car crisis, or lack of medicine, or the problem with the kids playing too many video game. I completely agree that tv is very motivating, and if it goes dark, the money will be found. This newfound dilema will cause an outreach to others, as well as a family adventure in which the parents will get to play board games, do art, go outside, cook together, play tag, attend school functions, build forts, or all of those other things that make life worthwhile. If all a child has to look forward to is 60 more years of nightime tv watching, why wouldn't they turn to drugs for diversion? Children are creative and need stimulation. Maybe the tv going dark for a couple weeks isn't the end of the world.
The Emergency Broadcast
The Emergency Broadcast System is a way to reach everyone with a TV in case of an emergency. Henceforth, if that system is unavailable and none have been installed to replace it, this definitely becomes a public health concern.
It is fantastic that many people can spend their time going out and enjoying a life outside the house in lieu of watching TV, however there a millions of disabled people that do not have that luxury. Thus TV is an important part of many lives to receive information and entertainment. Keep in mind as well that not everyone is literate, thus "picking up a book" instead is simply not a solution. For many of us, the service of TV has been relatively free (excluding donations to PBS) for generations, and it's hard to swallow having to pay to watch advertisements.
I think Herman Hamilton's idea of cutting a deal with the cable companies is a brilliant solution.
I agree wholeheartedly with
I agree wholeheartedly with this article. TV is not food, shelter, clothing or medicine. It is a mindless distraction that we could all do without. And I'm sorry, but the excuse of "not everyone is literate" is ridiculous...if someone watches TV because they haven't learned to read, I could think of one thing their time would be better spent doing.
I could not agree more with
I could not agree more with this article. Yes you can argue that the tone may be a tad snide, but the constant goverment delays are borderline insane. Flip the switch already people!
"[The government] is "double dipping"- they profited off the sale of the airwaves, then turn around and charge the people to get their TV back. I wish fervently for a class action lawsuit to address this problem."
Yes! Great idea. Let's sue the government. Wonderful. Then how about McDonalds for making their hamburgers too tasty? Maybe if you keep filing lawsuit after lawsuit you can get rich some day and sit around and watch TV for the rest of your life! Sue everyone, that is the true American way of life!
"How could [the government] possibly run out of coupons?"
I think that was addressed in the story...
"The people that don't have digital TV are most likely those that can't afford to switch to digital TV in the first place."
So? Why does it matter who is affected? Watching TV is not an American right that was written into the constitution. Billions of people have gone without TV for thousands of years. I think they can manage just fine. How long has this insane saga been going on? A couple years now? Notices have been scrolling across the bottom of my TV for many moons now. Maybe the affected will be affected because they don't actually watch TV!
"Does anyone know if the Emergency Broadcast System will still air on analogue waves?"
The Emergency Broadcast System wasn't used on 9/11. In all my many years of life I cannot remember one single time when it was used. I think people can cope just fine without it. When is the last time YOU have gotten critical news from the Emergency Broadcast System?
"The rush to switch over is shortsighted at best, as for it doesn't harm those that already have digital TV."
How does the switch 'harm' anyone?? I can promise that no one has ever been 'harmed' by missing Rock of Love, Oprah, or even the nightly news. Life will go on just fine, even if I can't see my local news channel report about the middle school of the week and the other tripe they shovel out every night.
I totally agree with the
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tagged as:
- solution
I totally agree with the article, "snide" tone and all!! People and Congress whinning and wasting taxpayers money on TV. This was the same congress that couldn't pass the bill for kids healthcare insurance. Can't spend money on the health of children but can pontificate about how the kids will turn to crime if they can't watch TV. Please!!! Ever heard of a book? As for the so called "old folk'' they're better off not poisoning their mind with the crap they have on TV. Got for long walks, read a book to your grand kids, go dancing at your local social hall or church bingo party. The rest of you, go to wallmart and buy a digital tv. Congress, spend money helping citizens stay in their homes, students pay for college, build shelters for homeless people and take care of veterans....etc. Don't waste my tax dollars on tv converters!! The auther of the article was not being snide, she was disgusted as I am. With all the daunting problems facing this nation at this juncture in time, job loss, crumbling economy, two wars, mortgage crisis.......do we really have time let alone money for this bullcrap? Throw the switch and be done with it already!!!
Digital Transition
To Turkey Jerky and I totally agree with the, you should go out and have a drink with Stephanie. I'm sure that you would enjoy the evening since you have so much in common.
I would only ask that you keep in mind (and maybe discuss ) the evolution of T.V. and OUR airwaves. Do you even know how it began or the intent to bring the world to every household who could afford a TV?
Turkey was right, "[The government] is "double dipping"- they profited off the sale of the airwaves, then turn around and charge the people to get their TV back. I wish fervently for a class action lawsuit to address this problem." It's pretty
obvious, what the context was but I can guarantee that you can list my name at the top. I can promise you, I won't be alone
Nobody is for "Flipping the switch" more than me but never at the expense of anybody who will have to do without because they just can't add it to their budget. The evolution of TV was never intended that way nor should it ever be.
Don't you get it? It really doesn't matter why someone watches TV, what they watch or wether they can afford it or not. It's about the airwaves that belong to US not the Goverment or the cable companies or whoever else our Government decides to sell it to. Name me just one benefit we as a society have received as a result of these sales. Did it build another school? Did it help a single student get through College? Did it help a single veteran? Did it build a single homeless shelter? Me think's not.
I really feel sorry for the few folks that agree with this article but on the positive side, it re-affirms my belief in humanity that most people are sensitive and caring for those less fortunate and look at the issue for what it actually is and not how it will effect them individually since to those, it obviously, won't really effect them at all.
P.S. I've subscribed to MJ for at least 10 years. Though I would never even consider cancelling my subscription, I have to say that I can't think of a single article I've read in all those year's that is more contrary to what I beleive MJ was created or intended to be.
Some will go dark permenantly
The poorest always get hit the hardest, just like at Katrina.
For some people, the last six months or so has just been just a dull pounding in of the message that this is the end of their lives.
Some people aren't cut out for life on the streets.
For over-50 out-of-work people, there is little chance of getting a job now, with all the layoffs of young people.
Who would you rather hire, a 20-30 year old who was just employed last month, or a chronically-unemployed, depressed 55 year-old?
And on top of all this change, the television goes dark.
Or they could make the conversion, then be moved to a cheaper room somewhere where there is zero reception.
The Media hasn't reported yet about the really Hurting Class of people, because it's too interesting to report millionaires committing suicide and home-owners losing their homes.
I am not saying losing TV will cause people to commit suicide, but family breakups, forced moves, financial difficulties, and loss of hope are all stress- producing events.
By a cruel twist of fate and planning, many people will lose TV at the same time.
No one knows how many people, because the statistics are all rigged to exclude them.
For some people, this is a far worse time than 1930 already, because people back then had families that largely stuck together.
By the way, do you know the FCC could have taken back some UHF Channels and given First Responders the band they needed years ago?
But then they wouldn't have been able to bundle that need in with the the desire of high-end consumers and Wireless Telecom companies.
Map of DTV Stations
There's a Map of TV Stations that transitioned to DTV on the 17th.
It's interesting that some areas of the country that you think would be all digital - like Silicon Valley - had only a few stations make the transition.
I'm curious
When did having access to television become a humanitarian concern? I dig that lacking television closes off one avenue of access to the Emergency Broadcast System, but the same warnings get sent across radio waves, too, which also include public broadcast stations. Working in the mountains of North Carolina, I didn't have cable or Internet, and my little cave dwelling was too deep in to receive over-the-air transmissions, but I survived the total blackout while remaining in the information loop.
And the idea that airwaves are in any way public is absurd. The cost of not only erecting a housing structure and transmission equipment, but also overcoming licensing fees well ensures that the average citizen has access only to listening and watching, not sending. Also, how many studies have come out documenting the negative impact of media messages on people, particularly young women and those in marginalized communities? Maybe they'll be better off without the barrage of negative imagery for a while.
As for the people concerned about old folks...join Meals on Wheels and bring a little true light into the lives of our elderly citizens instead of the false light of a cathode ray tube.
Absurd!
Most Americans watch TV shows on DVD or the web.
I have watched only about 3 hours of broadcast TV in the last year, hearing that "the office" was good I tried it out. I agree with the author that the switch should have been February 17 and that TV is not a necessity. We need to raise our voices about issues that have repercussions to our health and safety, like nuclear Disarmament or health care or homelessness malnutrition and poverty. TV is entertainment, The federal Government should be much less involved in it.
digital conversion
I haven't read Mother Jones in quite a while but I hope that your other contributing writers are not quite as uninformed as Mencimer is about the subjects that they cover. Mencimer should have done some real research and conducted some interviews with people who live in some of the dead zones and have tried to convert their reception signals. Maybe she could have talked with members of congress and asked them why they did not require broadcasters to boost their signals so as to reach the audience they served with analog signals. And she and some of you other snarky commenters might actually visit some of the poor, elderly, or shut ins and ask them what their thoughts are about losing their signal. Volunteering for meals on wheels is a wonderful idea, but after you've spent your 5 or 10 minutes dropping off the meal, there are still many long and lonely hours in the day for some of those people. And meals on wheels is often cancelled in bad weather, just when some of these people may want to watch some TV to find out what is going on in the outside world. Whatever value you hold in TV broadcasts, it is not for you do decide that value to anyone else. There are many dead zones and those often coincide with lack of cable service and those of us who have been receiving an analog signal, even if fuzzy at times, should now just go dark? A number of these areas also overlap with lack of broadband service. Do we really want to send these people back to the dark ages? While books and radio and newspapers are great, developing news and weather stories are still best seen on TV. After the next tornado, hurricane, or other disaster or some kind, would you be willing to read about shelters and water and food availability in Newsweek instead of seeing the information on your local TV station? Sorry but all you snarky and self righteous poor bashers aren't really providing an acceptable alternative to the upcoming signal blackout.
I've had cable for about a
I've had cable for about a decade running, so I didn't really get affected. I wanted my TV to go berserk just so I could feel all the insanity everyone else is feeling because of the DTV switch! So call me crazy. lol
72voice is correct
Jonathon, or anyone else who is curious:
Only a few people have had the guts to call this a Depression.
Stupid, inhumane time to "throw the switch" and disconnect people with fixed incomes.
$40 coupons are useless for some.
Television goes from something the poor can receive on a hand-me-down or garage sale TV to something that "might work" if you invest in a converter and an antenna.
The joke is, some people will discover they still don't get decent reception after they get an external antenna (that they couldn't afford) erected.
With all the fat and happy HDTV viewers and Cable and Satellite providers around, what incentive do the TV stations have to improve their signal to provide the coverage that the analog signal provided?
- Harry Vanderpool, a beekeeper, lives on a hill nearly 1,000 feet above the Willamette River, outside Salem, Ore. It should be a good spot for TV reception, and it used to be.
But now that analog signals are disappearing, leaving only digital ones, he may be losing all his channels.
"When you listen to the advertisements, it's 'Oh, all you have to do is get this little digital converter box and hook it up,'" Vanderpool said. "Well, we get nothing. Zero signal strength."
While generally better than analog, digital reception with antennas can be tricky. Although millions of people will receive more channels when switching to digital, many others are finding that stations they used to get in analog form won't come in on their converter boxes or digital TV sets.
In Ionia, Mich., retiree Bruce Jones is down to watching the two or three channels, rather than the dozen he used to get.
"They tell me I need an outdoor antenna, which I just can't afford," he said. To spare the $10 for the converter box, he had "cut out a day of groceries."
It's not just rural and small-town viewers like Vanderpool and Jones who are having problems with the phase-out of analog TV, which has been on the air for nearly 70 years. It's being done to give more room on the airwaves to wireless broadband, TV for cell phones and emergency communications.
In Hollywood, broadcast engineer Dana Puopolo gets the local stations fine with an indoor antenna in his bedroom, where he gets a view of the broadcast towers on Mt. Wilson, a dozen miles away. But even an amplified indoor antenna isn't enough to supply a watchable image to his widescreen TV, which is in the living room on the other side of the apartment.
"You can get it so the picture's perfect, and then when you sit down, 30 seconds later it pixelates into oblivion," Puopolo said, describing how the picture breaks up into big chunks of color. "The dirty little secret about digital is that it doesn't have nearly the coverage of analog."
A third of the country's TV stations have already turned off their analog signals. Many of them stuck to the original Feb. 17 deadline set by the government, even though it was hastily extended to June 12 to provide additional funding for converter box coupons. However, most of the stations that have turned off early are in smaller cities and sparsely populated areas. The big-city stations are mostly waiting until June 12.
On Feb. 18, the day after more than 400 stations went all-digital, nearly half of the 25,320 people who called the Federal Communications Commission's DTV call center did so because of a reception or antenna issue. Of the rest, most called because they had problems relating to the converter boxes or coupons.
There are several issues that conspire to make digital reception tricky. They can be especially vexing because digital broadcasting is an all-or-nothing proposition: You either get a perfect image or you get nothing at all. The only in-between state is the intermittent freezing that Puopolo experienced, which is more irritating than snow or static wandering across the screen of an analog TV.
A study published last year by market research firm Centris estimated that more than half of all households will have problems with digital reception. The study was criticized by several groups as exaggerating the problem. The FCC itself said 5 percent of households were likely to have problems.
Vanderpool's reception problem is likely due to the fact that nearly all digital signals are in the UHF band, which doesn't travel well over hills compared with the VHF band — channels 2 through 13, where most major stations broadcast in analog. While Vanderpool is on a hill himself, his home is in a small dell. Even the UHF addition to his antenna doesn't seem to overcome that.
The FCC official in charge of engineering and technology, Julius Knapp, said that when a station moves from VHF to UHF, there are spots where the signal will not reach as well as it did before, even though overall coverage will be the same.
The good news for people like Vanderpool is that some stations will use their VHF frequencies for digital transmissions after June 12.
But overall, there will be fewer VHF TV signals because channels 2 to 6 in that band are difficult to use for digital transmission, particularly the lowest ones. As Puopolo put it, the electrical noise from a thunderstorm or a passing bus can disrupt a digital TV picture on those frequencies.
And moving digital signals from UHF to VHF carries its own set of problems. Some indoor antennas that have been marketed as being for "HDTV reception" are designed for UHF only and will do a poor job with VHF. In general, it's difficult to make good indoor antennas for VHF.
Bruce Franca, vice president of policy and technology at the Association for Maximum Service Television, a broadcast industry group, said new "smart" antennas can help a lot of people. These can direct themselves electronically to pick up the best signals, which is particularly useful in households that lie between major cities. In his home outside Washington, D.C., he uses a smart antenna pick up both Washington and Baltimore stations.
"I can watch both the Orioles and Nationals, and you don't have get up and adjust the antenna," he said.
Many stations now have an analog antenna at the top of their transmission tower and a digital one mounted lower down on the side of the tower. Many plan to eventually move the digital antenna to the top, which can improve coverage. The FCC also has given stations clearance to put up a new type of small repeater station for digital signals to help with coverage in hard-to-reach pockets.
There are other developments that are likely to improve reception in the future, but it's not clear if people who have reception problems will have the patience to wait for them, or if they'll conclude on June 13 that they need to pay for satellite or cable.
Puopolo has already given up on over-the-air TV, expanded his satellite package for $10 a month to get high-definition programming for his widescreen. But, he said, digital TV can catch up, just like color TV did after some initial problems.
"Remember the old color TVs that had color controls? You'd adjust the knob to get a good flesh tone, and then you'd sit down and 10 minutes later the guy would have a purple face, and you'd have to adjust again," he said. "It's like any technology — there's growing pains."
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090302/ap_on_hi_te/tec_digital_tv_reception
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It was supposed to be a
It was supposed to be a landmark day in American TV history. On Tuesday, the nation’s broadcasters were going to make a permanent switch from analog to digital TV signals, a move that would bring broadcasting into the 21st century.
my opinion
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