Well, it didn’t last. Today Congress passed a measure to delay the digital television cutover until June. The revised bill allows television stations to switch over any time during that period, and this change was enough to get it passed in the House.
Call me paranoid, but who does this benefit? The sponsors of the bill are all crying that it’s the poor people and elderly that aren’t ready for the switch, but since the new bill allows stations to switch early I’m assuming most will (since at this late date they were probably ready to do so). Chances are if you were going to lose TV on the 17th you’re still gonna lose it.
However, those companies who want to start utilizing the freed bandwidth will have to wait four more months. Or, in the case of some, they will have four more months to get ready without existing competition.
So I ask again, who does this benefit?
The only group that I see it benefits is congresspeople themselves since they can now tell the masses that they “care” about the fact that they might not be able to get TV anymore. (And, those of us like you and me who think this is a bad idea are unfortunately in the minority.)
You have no idea how much this pisses me off. Its not the governments job to provide you television! The fact that they were even kind enough to A) give you any warning and B) offer a coupon to help you save money is beyond what I consider generous in this matter.
I’m hugely disappointed in the administration on this.
Television is a privilege not a right.
I actually have a vested interest in this. I get my television over the air and with my current arrangement I can get nearly every channel I need except NBC. Sometimes it is perfect and other times is is unwatchable (unlike analog where you can live with some fading and/or “snow” with digital it either works, doesn’t or is pixelated to death).
When the nearest NBC station takes its analog transmitters offline they will be configured to transmit digital at a higher power. This may alleviate the problems I have seen and I won’t have to doing anything like get a new antenna.