The Journal Times Online - Racine, Wisconsin

Posted by: Dr. Awkward on February 4, 2009 10:30PM CST Oh, come on. People have only had over a decade to prepare for this. That's nowhere near enough time. Another six months and all the procrastinators will surely be squared away, converter and rebate check in hand.

Posted by: Deo on February 5, 2009 8:35AM CST Dr. You are so right! You can get a converter on E-bay for as cheap as 20 to 30 dollars and the shipping is free. Does the Government really need an additional 650 million for this?

Posted by: Wookie on February 5, 2009 10:33AM CST If people are not ready by now they deserve to loose their tv signal. That will be the only way they'll finally take action.

Posted by: mortimer on February 5, 2009 12:20PM CST All those technologically challenged folks need to put another tape in their VCR, turn on PBS, and record Lawrence Welk and Hee-Haw for the last time....

Posted by: DebB on February 5, 2009 1:04PM CST One thing I didnt see in your blog, is that there are some media outlets that will make the change on the original date, so persons that didnt have the forethought to plan ahead then they may still lose some stations. The president and others we elect need to adopt my motto: Piss poor planning on your part does NOT create an emergency on my part!! And stick by it, really look at the news, it is incredible the things that Washington finds as important, versus the true crisis of the low and middle class families.

Posted by: MC on February 5, 2009 3:41PM CST It appears that many of the converter coupons were obtained just so they could sell the converters on ebay at a nice little profit. Probably explains why they ran out of coupons.

Posted by: Dr. Awkward on February 5, 2009 6:29PM CST You're probably right, MC. Along with many who probably applied for the coupons without having any idea if they needed one or not. Those who request something just because it's free, whether they can use it or not. Then when they learned that they don't need a converter because they have satellite, cable or another service besides antenna, they threw it away or in a drawer preventing those who waited to find out that they actually need one from getting one.

Posted by: Apollo Creed on February 5, 2009 7:26PM CST Cable already is as good as its going to get your cable picture is not going to get any better.

Posted by: Is What It Is on February 5, 2009 9:58PM CST People that are not ready today, will still not be ready in 4 months. So just go ahead throw the switches and get it over with.

Posted by: Dr. Awkward on February 5, 2009 10:17PM CST I wonder if this decision to delay the transition is actually due to the economy. If the economy is bad, people have less money. If they have less money, they will be less likely to buy a converter--esecially if the coupons are gone. If they don't have a converter and lose their television reception, they can't be advertised to. If they can't be advertised to, they can't find out about all of the deals aimed at boosting the economy. On the flip side, if their TV went snowy, they would be much more incentive to buy a converter, or to become a paying customer of satellite or cable, thereby boosting the economy, not to mention now receiving more channels to be advertised to on. Maybe free satellite and cable should be part of the stimulus bill. So more people can become marketed to. Isn't the benefit of marketing basically Keynsian Economics in a nutshell? You've got to spend money to make money?

Posted by: Huck Finn on February 5, 2009 10:42PM CST The question needs to be asked. Why is TV so important we are pushing back the analog date? If it's control of information, how much info can Jerry Springer really give us? It'd actually be a boon for the newspapers, don't ya think?

Posted by: Wookie on February 6, 2009 8:05AM CST Dr. what your missing is the coupons most like created an artificialy inflated price. Once the government says not more coupons ever the price of converter will drop by $40 to $10-$20.

Posted by: Wookie on February 6, 2009 9:42AM CST sorry for the typos

Posted by: mortimer on February 6, 2009 1:51PM CST I don't remember getting a voucher for a VCR when BETA became obsolete, or a voucher for a DVD player when VHS tapes became obsolete. Do we get vouchers for BlueRay players when DVDs become obsolete?

Posted by: Parivrajaka on February 6, 2009 6:42PM CST mortimer wrote: "I don't remember getting a voucher for a VCR when BETA became obsolete..." How many Americans could've used a voucher to crush their Hummer and buy a Honda Insight when gas crept towards $5/gallon? Beta became obsolete? When did that happen? Why didn't someone tell me!

Posted by: Parivrajaka on February 6, 2009 7:15PM CST You could write a book about all of the bailouts earmarked for the TV industry. Here are some examples: The Soviet empire collapsed in the late 1980s/early 1990s. This was inconvenient for military industrial complex stock prices. Electronics companies lobbied for an alternative. The DOD obliged and threw our tax money into high definition display research. This probably helped TI and Motorolla for a few years, but most (all?) of the HDTV displays are now made in China which helps their booming economy which allowed the Chinese govt to buy $ to keep their currency low and keep our easy credit flowing so we can buy more HDTVs! The FCC slackened enforcement of RF interference laws (CB radio...) making it much more difficult for anyone to receive TV without cable. The government also made it illegal for satellite companies to show local programs, preserving the telecable monopoly for as long as possible. The FCC sold the public frequency bandwidth freed by the introduction of digital TV when it would have been much better for taxpayers if this bandwidth were kept as a public resource and leased to the companies. Amongst the pork in the $700 Billion "Emergency Economic Stabilization act of 2008" (a.k.a. Bailout 1.0) you'll find: SEC. 502. PROVISIONS RELATED TO FILM AND TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS. Then there are the vouchers. Did we all get vouchers when upgrading from a 386 to a pentium? From Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, 98, 2000, Linux then OSX? Of course not. But aren't TVs are a critical part of our communication infrastructure? No they aren't, not anymore. For all their flash and beautiful pictures, HDTVs have become pure entertainment devices and a look at the content of even 'news', 'documentory' and 'education' shows emphasizes this fact. HDTVs also have virtually no interactive capability because they were designed around DOD thinking in the 1980s before Microsoft Windows or the internet or google, youtube, mp3/mp4 players, DVDs... I'll be happy enough to use HDTV if I'm lucky enough to live in an area served by cable, but when government screws with market forces, they usually get it horribly wrong (e.g. the banking crisis). Chances are HDTV will result in hundreds of millions of TVs leaching toxic waste into landfills, much higher home energy usage and some people will be left with pre 1950s TV coverage because digital simply doesn't work in fringe reception areas. No, it's not a conspiracy, that requires planning and intelligence, the HDTV rollout fiasco is a lucky harmonic convergence of sloth, corruption and incompetence.

Posted by: Parivrajaka on February 7, 2009 6:55AM CST Just to be clear, I welcome HDTV or any other technology that consumers freely choose. But I strongly oppose using taxpayer money and government mandates to select winners and losers in any private industry (Mismanaged banks, Chinese HDTV manufacturers, Real Estate investors...) Propping up the TV industry with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars is just as wasteful and unfair as Sarkozy's plan to spend the equivalent of almost $800 million dollars of French taxpayer money to buy free newspapers to prop up that industry. It's obvious to anyone outside the beltway that TV and Newspapers as a form of centralized information control have gone the way of the steam engine. Media companies which don't embrace the two way broadcasting and narrowcasting made possible by the Internet deserve to go out of business.

Posted by: Dr. Awkward on February 7, 2009 5:26PM CST To be fair with all of these obsoletion comparisons, analog broadcast signal is not going to become obsolete or simply unavailable for future releases, as with VHS/BETA/DVD or any other technological improvements. VCRs and videotapes were never free and then the government outlawed them forcing people to buy new DVD players. Analog television broadcasting it is a free service/product that is going to cease to exist altogether. One that often carries important information, such as emergency weather and amber alerts that could save lives that the government is simply taking away from citizens without the latest television equipment. It makes sense that there be some sort of compensation for the money that will simply have to be spent in order to continue receiving this free source of entertainment and information. A lot of people simply can't afford, or even if they can will understandably be upset that the government will force them to purchase electronic equipment in order to receive the services they have received for free for decades because of their fixed income (I love that line, as if everyone else as unlimited income).

Posted by: Parivrajaka on February 7, 2009 5:50PM CST Dr. Awkward, Yes I'd thought of the weather alert problem, especially since the new changeover date coincides with tornado season for the midwest where there will be huge gaps in digital coverage as compared to analog. T.V. coverage of local weather still beats radio, newspapers and internet, and if you're stuck in a basement without power, a battery powered portable TV, a radio with a TV band or an FM radio tuned to 88Mhz for channel 6 audio are the best options for up-to-date coverage. All of these will be useless after the changeover! So I hope radio stations step up their coverage. I remember being caught out during a flood alert and hearing nothing but Art Bell and clear channel muzak on the radio, absolutely no warning! My other gripe (yes I have many) about this is that the subsidy ignores principles of economics. If it costs a company 2$ to make a converter box and they want to sell it at a $38 profit, they'll sell it for $40. If the government suddenly provides a $40 subsidy, they'll sell it for $80. The same thing would happen if the government gave everyone $1000 for health 'insurance', it would insure that the average cost of health care would rise by $1000.

Posted by: Dr. Awkward on February 7, 2009 6:25PM CST You make good points, Parivrajaka, as did Wookie about the artificially inflated price. That would probably explain the variance in price of the converters from $40 to $75.

Posted by: T.Kay on February 9, 2009 2:31PM CST Just do it already! You can get a converter from Wal-E-World for $49.00! IF you have a coupon that's only $9.00 +tax. Let people lose their signal and get in line. It's not the end of the world for christ sakes, it's just TV!

Posted by: firefly2 on February 9, 2009 6:08PM CST i was at rad shak in the mall and they had a couple stacks of convertor boxes about 20 tall each. turning off the tv signal would be doing them a favor with not much worth watching.

Posted by: Regular Racine Guy on February 10, 2009 7:03AM CST It's a big freakin scam. Why do they NEED to change from analog to digital? Because it is to force people to PAY for tv. The rich get richer! Screw the FCC and cable companies, don't screw the people!

Posted by: Dr. Awkward on February 10, 2009 12:38PM CST They need to change because all of the wireless services are running out of frequencies on which to transmit and operate. Analog uses six times the bandwidth as digital does. An inferior signal at 600% the bandwidth. So forcing television stations to switch everything to digital will free up much needed wireless bandwidth. I'm not sure who the rich are who will get richer. Digital converter companies? And having to pay a one-time charge for a converter is forcing people to pay for TV? If you say so.