Today the US House passed the DTV Extension bill. The bill passed 264 to 158. Television stations will now have until June 12th to switch their signals from analog to digital.
What this means:
* the reported 67,000 Atlantans not ready will now have the opportunity to make the transition before their tv sets go dark.
* the 3.2 million people on the government coupon list will hopefully now receive their coupons to purchase digital converter boxes
* the delay allows more time for the government to better fund the converter-box coupon program, give local residents a little more time to take action, and will help local organizations do more work to ensure a smoother transition for our communities.
* the four month extension will be a rolling transition for the nation's 1,700 television stations. They, along with the FCC, will determine when their analog powered antennas will convert to all digital.
* the stimulus bill, now sitting in the US Senate, contains the funding for the government DTV coupons.
Help make sure that your neighbor is ready, donate a coupon and/or help them apply for a coupon.
Comments (2)
They should have killed the signal for half a day about a year ago to get people moving on this.
Rather than treating this like a standard switch, though, it seems like both government (and especially) the TV companies treated digital signals as a premium product for far too long.
Doesn't this bill just give the option for TV broadcasters to delay the switch? It's not an order; broadcasters can cut off their signal anytime after Feb 15 or whatever day it is that the switch was supposed to occur.