http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/01/28/digital.tv.delay/index.html
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Digital TV
Though I have been completely annoyed by the number of reminders about the conversion to digital television over the last four months and I am ready for it to end, I'm not sure that having 6.5 million people without the buzz of the daily news cycle is a good thing for our country. We already push people out of the need to care about politics and issues by eliminating their tax burden to below zero, but now no television news. How will the change affect you?
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ReplyDeleteExtending the date to June will not make any difference to most of the 6.5m who have not considered doing anything on this issue.The issue at hand here is to focus on economy.People are very much worried of loosing their homes as well as their cars more than what it would cost to have no TV for a full year. Many people have lost their jobs which they have heard for many years. Will these people worry of TV going digital while internet has all what they need and libraries are free of charge?-Annah wondering??????
ReplyDeleteMaybe the government should use the millions of dollars being budgeted for the conversion to help fund the television stations' cost of keeping the analog transmitters on, at least until the economy works its way out of this tail spin. It seems counterproductive to prohibit 6.5 million people from staying informed on current events while we're trying to pull together as a country and fix our economy.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the House passed the delay bill yesterday and since it had the White House's support to begin with, the DTV problem will now not bother anyone until June.
ReplyDeleteSecond, though, if months of ads and explanations (including one by Joe the Plumber, of 2008 election fame) haven't made people clear on what's happening or convinced of the need to change something on their TVs, another few months probably won't make a big difference either. I predict having to make this decision again around late May-early June...
Third, there are other ways for people to keep up with current events. Radio's still out there, and there are newspapers too, or camping out on a friend's couch to watch the news, so I'm not sure the "OMG there are so many people who won't have TV" argument really has much weight.
I'd like to see them stick with the original deadline and deal with the fallout rather than causing more debate and potential confusion by putting it off another 4 months.
I agree with the comment that those who don't have digital by now probably don't care enough to change it by June. And as for the economy, it was very easy to get that government card that made getting the converter box only 10 dollars, which isn't going to make or break the large majority of those 6.5 million people.
ReplyDeleteAs for me, I don't have a tv in my dorm room, and I still get my news cuz my homepage is CNN. If the people don't care enough about tv to get a converter box, they probably don't watch it that often anyways.