Switch to Digital TV Wins a Delay to June 12, 2009

Source: New York Times; By Brian Stelter - Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Less than two weeks before the expected end of analog broadcasting, television owners received a reprieve on Wednesday. It appears probable that Americans will have four more months to upgrade their old sets before a federal deadline requires stations to switch to digital TV.

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to extend the deadline for the signal switch until June 12, ending a monthlong debate about the technology upgrade. The Senate passed similar legislation last week, and President Obama has indicated that he will sign the bill.

The House voted 264 to 158 in favor of a delay. In a statement Wednesday, Amy Brundage, a White House spokeswoman, said the Obama administration would “continue to work with Congress to improve the information and assistance available to American consumers in advance of June 12, especially those in the most vulnerable communities.” The stimulus package before Congress includes up to $650 million in financing for coupons to ease the transition.

Michael J. Copps, the acting chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said in a statement that the additional four months of transition time would afford “urgently needed time for a more phased transition.”

Broadcasters were scheduled to end analog broadcasts on Feb. 17. Once the broadcasts stop, the valuable analog spectrum will be used by wireless companies and public safety agencies. Verizon and AT&T, for instance, paid billions for access to the spectrum and are waiting to introduce new products using it.

The vast majority of households are prepared for the conversion, but despite an estimated $1 billion information campaign, millions of households with older TV sets are not yet ready. When stations turn off their analog signals, those households will not be able to view the channels unless they install converter boxes to translate the digital signals.

Mr. Obama and other Democrats raised concerns last month about consumer readiness for the switch. Before Mr. Obama took office, his transition team noted that financing for the government’s coupon program, meant to subsidize the cost of converter boxes, had temporarily run out, placing millions of households on a waiting list.

“Yes, it would be great if everyone had received their coupons, and if everybody understood the transition to digital, but they don’t,” Representative Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California, said Wednesday during the House’s debate. She said that some people, senior citizens in particular, were going to be “terribly inconvenienced.”

Some House Republicans had opposed a delay, saying that it would only increase confusion about the impending transition. “No matter what date you establish, there’s always going to be somebody who doesn’t get the message,” Representative Cliff Stearns, a Republican from Florida, said during the House debate.

The next four months may prove to be a rolling transition for the nation’s estimated 1,700 local TV stations. The legislation that passed on Wednesday permits some stations to turn off their analog signals before June, meaning that some stations in a given market could switch before others. The research firm Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, in a note to clients on Wednesday, said that hundreds of stations were moving forward with their February transition plans, “creating the potential for some over-the-air programming disruption and consumer confusion this month.”

Last month the Nielsen Company estimated that 6.5 million households were unprepared for the switch, meaning that no televisions in those homes were equipped to receive digital signals.

The F.C.C. is expected to discuss revised transition rules for stations at a hearing on Thursday. With F.C.C. permission, scores of local TV stations have already turned off their analog transmitters and are broadcasting solely in digital form. Every station in Hawaii made the switch last month.

Viewers can expect to see more public service announcements about the transition in the coming weeks. The National Association of Broadcasters, a lobbying group for local stations, said it would provide commercials and resources to promote the new deadline.

Media companies by and large supported the delay. In a statement, News Corporation, the parent company of Fox, said it was pleased that consumers would be given additional time to prepare.” Television networks continue to worry that their ratings will drop, at least temporarily, when would-be viewers discover that their televisions no longer work.

Some consumers will be left in the dark, no matter when the transition happens, said Janice Finkel-Greene, the executive vice president for futures and technology at the media-buying agency Initiative. Those viewers are the “same people who are at the post office at midnight” the night before the tax deadline, she said.