Last week I reported that Congress passed a bill that would delay the transition of analog television singles over to Digital. I've nothing but disdain for this act, which John Sullivan voted yes for. In my opinion this is the second dumbest thing that congress has done this year. The first obviously being the massive "stimulus" bill.
Anyway I digress. In my previous post I provided the reasons I think this delay is ridiculous. It seems, however, that I missed the icing on the cake. The AP is reporting that Congress gave stations the option of keeping the Feb 17 date. Apparently some 641 stations have decided to stick to the original date(today).
A patchwork of 641 stations across the country, mainly in thinly populated areas, are still turning off their analog broadcasts this week or have already done so. The most populous markets where many or all major-network stations are cutting analog include San Diego and Santa Barbara, Calif.; Providence, R.I.; La Crosse and Madison, Wis.; Rockford, Ill.; Sioux City, Iowa; Waco, Texas; Macon, Ga.; Scranton, Pa.; and Burlington, Vt.Excellent Congress...good work, you guys have taken a complex and confusing issue and made it 10 times worse.
"I think this whole delay is ridiculous," said Robert Prather, president of Gray Television Inc., an Atlanta-based company that owns 36 stations. "It's just going to cause confusion among consumers. There's no reason in the world for it that I can understand."
No one really knows how many viewers will be affected this week. Nielsen Co. said 5.8 million U.S. households, or 5.1 percent of all homes, were not ready for the analog shutdown, but it's unclear how many of them are in early-shutdown areas. Also, the National Association of Broadcasters has taken issue with Nielsen's numbers, saying they exaggerate the problem by counting households that have digital converters but haven't connected them.
"The ones who aren't going to be ready aren't going to be ready in June any more than they are now," Prather said.
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Digital Television Transition
John Sulivan
2 comments:
The delay actually costs in the millions and it also creates another delay in the broadband arena.AT&T is supposed to use part of this bandwidth to implement a new technology called "white way".Not much of this has been mentioned so it creates a frustration on people who are still in dial up.
Anonymous, you are right. I mentioned that in my previous post. The delay is a dumb deal all the way around.
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