User Submitted Blog Post: What is the DTV transition (and will we survive it)?

Dear Consumer:

You may have heard alarming reports that at some point early next year a whole bunch of TV sets are going to go dark because of the "DTV transition." Please don't worry. No one wants to take your television set away from you, least of all the Bush administration. Here are the facts.

The United States government has set February 17th, 2009 as the last day that television stations may broadcast their signal using the analog method. Analog systems use modulating frequencies to transmit sound and pictures. Digital systems transmit TV signals, well, via digits, complex packets of zeros and ones that get reassembled into video and audio when they reach your television set.

Everybody gets something from digital or "DTV" broadcasting. You'll get better images and sound, with much less interference. Plus DTV transmission will allow TV license holders to broadcast several streams from one signal, a technique called "multicasting." This means that you will have even more channels to choose from, depending on the extent to which cable and satellite companies pick them all up, still a matter of dispute.

In addition, the abandonment of all these analog signals has allowed the Federal government to auction off a huge swath of channel space, or spectrum, earning the United States Treasury billions of dollars which will doubtless be put to excellent use.

The Federal Communications Commission has ruled that all newly manufactured boob tubes have to come equipped with digital tuners. Retailers can still sell analog only equipment, but they've got to include the following warning around the said gear: "This television receiver has only an analog broadcast tuner and will require a converter box after February 17th, 2009, to receive over-the-air broadcasts with an antenna because of the Nation's transition to digital broadcasting. . . . "

Already about 1,600 TV stations broadcast both analog and digital signals. The problem is that millions of Americans, perhaps as many as 21 million, still rely on analog television only. That is, they don't have a digital tuner, or a cable or satellite set top box, which usually picks up a digital signal and translates it into something that their analog TV can receive. They just watch TV using a plain old rabbit ears antenna analog machine.

That means that on midnight, February 17th, 2009, their TV set will become a useless piece of furniture, unless the owner of that receiver acts sooner. That means that somebody has to tell them to act, and how to act. The problem is that a lot of those owners are the least reachable people in our society: the poor, the very elderly, folks in remote rural areas, and people with disabilities. Paradoxically, while many of these individuals depend on television for their primary connection to the outside world, they're going to be the hardest people to get retooled for the digital transition. Among other problems, many of them don't have the money to buy a fancy new digital TV set.

To address the money issue, the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has started a Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Coupon Program. Beginning on January 1st, 2008, all Americans became eligible to receive two $40 coupons good towards purchase of a set top box that, plugged into your grandmother's old TV, will convert that digital signal to analog and keep the telly running.

But the challenge will be to a) make grandma aware of the problem, and b) make her, or someone who can help her, aware of the solution. To deal with these public education tasks, the government has budgeted a sum that many critics regard as woefully inadequate, about $5 million for the NTIA, and another $2 million for the FCC. The British, in contrast, have allocated almost $400 million for the job.

NTIA officials defend the relatively low sum earmarked for this task by assuring the public that the private sector—broadcasters, TV manufactures, and retail TV distributors—will take on the burden of educational work. Last summer I attended an FCC Consumer Advisory Committee (CAC) meeting, at which a National Association of Broadcasters official assured the group that this was a top priority for broadcasters, a matter of self-interest, even calling the DTV transition "television's Y2K."

Since then, the FCC has decided to help broadcasters get more enthusiastic about the DTV transition by requiring them to run a schedule of Public Service Announcements and "crawls" (those text lines you see, well, crawling at the bottom of your screen) on a regular basis through this year and next.

Speaking personally, I applied for my two NTIA coupons in early January and still have not received them. But hope springs eternal. One thing is for sure, whatever happens after February 17th, 2009, the Last Day of Analog Broadcasting, President George W. ("You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie") Bush, won't have to answer for it. At least there's that.