Analog Cut-Off Date: 284 Million TVs Go Blank

At a breakfast meeting yesterday moderated by ABC's Sam Donaldson (left), seven Congressmen and Senators discussed the U.S. government's plan to shut down a quarter of a billion TV sets on December 31, 2006  ... maybe.

As part of a 10 year-old plan to revise U.S. bandwidth usage, Congress decreed that U.S. television broadcasters would convert to digital transmission, in part to free up spectrum for wireless communications. Once the cut over to a digital signal was made -- once a station could show that 85% of its viewers take the digital signal --  analog transmission would be ended, plunging all the older, non-digital-ready sets into static.

Broadcasters are reluctant to have their customers' screens go blank. Consumer electronics firms, on the other hand, are delighted to replace all those 284 million analog units with slick, flat panel and HD-ready digital sets. (The CE people point out that digital TV sales are booming, with some 20 million units expected in 2005, but a new digital divide is clearly on the horizon.)

At the NAB breakfast, legislators worried about subsidies for underprivileged users, government interference in the market, and the threat of unplugged constituents rising up in protest when they find one morning that their TVs don't work.

At yesterday's breakfast, House Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton promised to introduce a digital transition bill to Congress in the next two or three weeks, but it doesn't seem like smooth sailing.

See the Reuter's coverage and the NAB Daily coverage.

Comments

[Dave]

Don't forget the subsidies for low income viewers! Yes, they'll get a rebate to buy a downconverter. The other issue is that with all the people who will use a crutch on their old sets, the actual transition to HDTV will be slowed down. Some people out there will buy these boxes for their existing sets and think they are getting HDTV. I've seen people in stores buy a DVD player and HD set and think their favorite films are in HD on the DVD which THEY ARE NOT. So we have to better educate the public about what is digital and what really is HDTV. I propose 2 things. 1. Put a disclaimer on all existing analog sets sold indicating that they will not work without a box after 12/31/06. 2. Indicate what sets on display are digital and what sets are HDTV.