Posted on 01/26/2009 7:30:26 PM PST by Peace4EarthNow
WASHINGTON – The Senate on Monday voted unanimously to postpone the upcoming transition from analog to digital television broadcasting by four months to June 12 — setting the stage for Congress to pass the proposal as early as Tuesday.
Monday's Senate vote is a big victory for the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress, who have been pushing for a delay amid growing concerns that too many Americans won't be ready for the currently scheduled Feb. 17 changeover.
The Nielsen Co. estimates that more than 6.5 million U.S. households that rely on analog television sets to pick up over-the-air broadcast signals could see their TV sets go dark next month if the transition is not postponed.
"Delaying the upcoming DTV switch is the right thing to do," said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., author of the bill to push back the deadline. "I firmly believe that our nation is not yet ready to make this transition at this time."
The issue now goes to the House, where Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has vowed to work with House leaders to bring Rockefeller's bill up for a floor vote on Tuesday.
President Barack Obama earlier this month called for the transition date to be postponed after the Commerce Department hit a $1.34 billion funding limit for government coupons that consumers may use to help pay for digital TV converter boxes. The boxes, which generally cost between $40 and $80 each and can be purchased without a coupon, translate digital signals back into analog ones for older TVs.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Great! Four more months of those irritating messages on TV about how my television will “stop working”.
What's a "funding limit"?
This should jerk us right out of this “financial crisis!” Way to go boys! Good job!
Not ready??? You’d have to be a moron not to know this is going on. You can’t turn on the TV without everyone and their uncle talking about this.
If people haven’t been able to go out and either buy a box or get coupons after all the months they’ve had to prepare for this, then they deserve to sit in their living rooms without American Idol until they do.
It’s amazing to me. The complaint seems to be that the government hasn’t paid for enough of the changeover. Funding limit? I suppose it’ll be part of the CBS bailout, whenever that happens.
“The worst TV reception since the Great Depression!” - Barack Hussein Obama
How many years of warnings will it take for dumbed-down Americans to get their tax-payer funded converter boxes?
I may still get a few baseball games in on the old Watchman.
Why is this happening anyway? Who cares? Why the hell is govt. mandating a change and then spending tax dollars with these coupons to help people with the transition?
This is good news for me. Carries me thru until summer reruns. Thank you Congress.
Right it is everywhere. I don’t watch any over the air tv. I have satellite. Nothing was going to happen to the channels I get. Yet they made sure to run commercials to tell everyone on that too. The people that didn’t know about this should have to deal with it and pay for their own stupid converter boxes.
I thought Hawaii already switched, and it went surprisingly smoothly. How could Hawaii convert early if there’s going to be a mandate that analog Bcast continue until June?
I don't need a television. Most of the time, it just raises my blood pressure.
(tinfoil helmet on)
Control the transmitter, control the receiver, control the broadcaster, control the content. . . .
No common thread here.
(/tinfoil helmet off)
I'm sure all the broadcasters that have already switched are not jumping for joy right now since they spent millions to be in compliance on the dead line.
And on June 17th we can expect another extension. If I remember correctly, the original date of the cutover was supposed to be a couple of years ago and our congresscritters kept pushing the date out.
Same for me. Well, more or less; I have cable rather than satellite.
The original deadline should have been the day before the Super Bowl and they should have stuck to it.
The Conservative Freedom Fighter for anyone who cares to listen to the archive.
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