Senators decry U.S. outreach efforts in switch to all-digital TV signals (LAT)

[Eugene]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Senators decry U.S. outreach efforts in switch to all-digital TV signals
By Jim Puzzanghera, Times Staff Writer
2:00 PM PDT, July 26, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Senators today blasted the government's efforts
to tell millions of people who rely on antennas to watch TV that
their sets may go blank in a little more than 18 months, when
broadcasters switch to digital-only signals.

"I think there's high potential for a train wreck here," Sen. Maria
Cantwell (D-Wash.) told Federal Communications Commission and
Commerce Department officials during a hearing on the digital TV
transition.

Lawmakers and advocacy groups have become increasingly
concerned that the government isn't doing enough to educate the
approximately 20% of households — 1 million in Los Angeles alone
— that receive only over-the-air TV.

Under federal law, stations must turn off their old analog signals
Feb. 18, 2009, and broadcast only in digital.

-snip-

The government is relying on the television industry and consumer
electronics makers to do the bulk of the public education, and so
far "their efforts have yielded few results," said Senate Commerce
Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii).

-snip-

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-digitaltv27jul27,1,4729059.story

[Sequoia]

1. "They're not going to call you,"

she told Kneuer and Cathy Seidel, chief of the FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. "They're going to call me, and they're going to be mad."

"When people start calling in," McCaskill said, "I'm giving them your numbers."

[msongs]

2. I use rabbit ears - all we watch is 4 PBS stations. not sure how this will affect us

only watch so called over the air TV in the event of REAL important news items that affect us directly and we NEED to know what's going on.

its nice to have 4 PBS stations, each of which has national PBS stuff and local programming as well.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[2Design]

3. they should keep antenna availability - this is pushing people to

high price cable which sucks

[yy4me]

4. I'm glad someone brought this up, can you explain to me why

we will have to give the cable company more money to rent another "Box" from them to switch our perfectly good TV's from analog to digital. This move serves to enrich the makers of TV's and is another way to put the screws to those of us who cannot afford new sets. We have 2 that are older but work perfectly fine.
I did ask at Best Buy about the new digital switch in Feb 09 and was told that we had to buy a converter box that will be very expensive or we have to give Comcast more money per month to rent one. I don't want to see another box, let alone pay for one. As it is now, we give them $90.00 for cable and Internet. There is no more $$$ in our budget for them. I am thinking of trying DSL. Will DSL amount to the same thing...need box?


And how about the disposal of all the old TV's that will be sent to the dump because those who can afford it will buy new ones? This will be a huge problem.