House rejects DTV delay, keeps Feb. switchover
The national transition to digital television remains on track for a scheduled date of February 17, after the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday rejected a proposal to delay the switchover.
The House vote of 258 to 168 failed to meet the two-thirds threshold required to pass the measure under the rules the Democratic leadership put in place for Wednesday's debate. The vote comes just two days after the Senate unanimously approved pushing back the transition to June 12. President Obama's advisers have also advocated delaying the transition.
Republicans opposed the delay, saying pushing back the date would create confusion for consumers and burden television stations that would have to continue broadcasting both analog and digital signals.
Proponents of the delay have warned that millions of consumers will be left without television service if the transition is not postponed.
Nielsen reports that more than 6.5 million U.S. households are still not prepared for the transition. Moreover, millions of consumers are still waiting for coupons for digital converter boxes from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which ran through the $1.3 billion allocated for the coupons. A Senate panel on Tuesday approved an additional $650 million for the coupon program as part of its so-called "stimulus" package.
John Rockefeller, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said in a statement after the vote that he was "deeply disappointed" and claimed that the Bush administration "grossly mismanaged" the program.
Stephanie Condon is a staff writer for CNET News focused on the intersection of technology and politics. She is based in Washington, D.C. E-mail Stephanie. 
All of the money that has been spent to educate the public would be wasted. President Obama needs to understand that television isn't a constitutional right that he must protect. If folks are too stupid to pay attention and get the DTV convertor box after all this time, they'll just have to live with an FM radio.
It's nice to see our tax dollars not wasted for once. Some people forget that sometime life is just not fair... (and sometimes people need to get off their lazy butts and not wait until the last minute.)
Meanwhile, House Republicans are enjoying fat perks and buddying with cable company lobbyists. Yay for "Democracy by Lobby"!
All House and Senate members are enjoying perks from whatever lobbyist is passing out money.
I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that something will change and this will not pass.
Quite frankly if you don't have cable or sat tv you knew that this was coming, the lettering was on the wall, and yet TV Stations across the country keep running stories of little old ladies, that are upset they now have to go out and buy a box so they can keep watching tv and have to pay retail because they were too lazy to order their coupon on time, i mean seriously what were you expecting a goverment employee coming to your house to hand u the coupon personally?
PS: Ok, so they kinda underestimated the amount of people out there without cable, this will be fixed, with the stimulus, onward with digital!
Techyworkz
If Americans think that is progress, then we are in worse shape than anyone realizes.
TV is still free, the 10-12 channels that are out there anyways. You just need to buy a box and in some cases a better antenna to get them.
Time for people to start listening, and start thinking of their priorties. Get up, get out, and get informed.
$1.6 Billion divided by $40 per coupon = 40 million coupons
What happened to all those coupons if we are 6.5 million short?
$1.3 Billion divided by $40 per coupon = 32.5 million coupons.
Which obviously still should have been enough, but by a narrower margin than you calculated.
Then there are the make a buck people. Get it free, sell it on eBay. They got the coupon, used it to buy a converter box at a discount, and then sell the converter box on eBay for retail price.
Typical Democrat response.
It is not worth it.
Yes, we all do have mothers, however, some of us, like responsible human beings, went over and made sure that they got what they needed before the time came. How about you spend some time helping your mom out and less time complaining about it on CNET? The people that do not have a converter by now deserve to lose their tv. I am tired, as a taxpayer, of footing the bill because people are lazy and ignorant.
Sorry folks, I'm a D ? and a liberal one at that ? but ever since I wrote Home Theater magazine's cover story on HDTV (and yes, I've written for CNET, too)? in January, 1999, the word has been out there about these issues. If people didn't convert in a timely manner, too bad. Were I in the House, I would have voted no as well.
The federal government has much bigger issues to deal with ? and stalling this transition for four months isn't going to help anyone.
Yeah, and screw those old people when their TV doesn't work! They shoulda been reading Home Theatre magazine, or watching television for ten hours a day so they'd know about the switchover!
Reminder: Some people in rural and urban areas alike use TV sparingly. They may never have seen the ads about the switchover, or aren't sure what to do, or simply discount the whole thing. Yeah, we've known for ten years this was coming - and eight of those years were during one of the most inept administrations ever - so I think Obama's team needs a little extra time to do-over all the screwed up Bush 'initiatives' that weren't done right the first time.
We have a database of EVERYONE served by the post office. Send them all a note and give them six months. Then switch over so Larry and Sergey can have their white space.
The CHANGE is coming whether you HOPE it doesn't or not.
By the way, the converters work fine and deliver a much-improved picture for our over-the-air channels. The only problem is the local PBS station, which is the only station in town that still hasn't converted to HD. A PBS spokesperson was quoted in today's newspaper saying that the station is thinking of waiting until June so "our viewers" have plenty of time to make the switch, etc. Sounds bogus to me.
If the problem was related to something critical to people's lives (like heat for their homes) then I can see the fuss.
Do the cutoff already. For the people that absolutely need their TV, this will speed up adoption of the new boxes, coupon or no coupon.
Implementation: Money runs out for the coupons. Millions of people are still waiting on them who applied in plenty of time to receive them and be prepared for the change, however those coupons are pending additional funds or expiration of already issued coupons.
Result: Even though you ordered a coupon in plenty of time to get one, we (government) messed up and ran out of money. Oops. Oh well. Hope you like listening to the radio instead. Maybe we'll get you one of those coupons later. Or you could just go buy one yourself. The economy is booming so you should have plenty of expendable income laying around, right? What's that? The President and the Senate think we should extend the deadline for 4 months? Hogwash. Less than half the House obviously knows way better than the rest of the house and those other clowns. Move forward with the transition anyway. Didn't you hear what a resounding success it's been in the test cities?
Now, on the other hand, if the coupon program didn't have a waiting list and there were still millions of people not prepared for the transition, too bad. Go ahead and swtich anyway. Just doesn't seem right though to say "Coupons! Get Your Coupons Here! What's that? You want one? Sorry, we're all out. Coupons! Get Your Coupons Here!".
- by dracoaffectus January 28, 2009 2:08 PM PST
- Seems to me like the part of the problem could have been people unnecessarily ordering coupons, because they thought they needed them. I'm sure many people with cable or satellite didn't pay attention to the commercial well enough to understand that they wouldn't need a converter box.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (77 Comments)It also just occurred to me that the government set up the coupon program backwards. Instead of paying for every coupon that gets sent out, they should have made it like a mail-in rebate for retailers who sell the boxes. So that way they only pay for the coupons that get used.
Also, whose bright idea was it to put a 60 (or was it 90?) day expiration date on the coupons?? they should have made the expiration date for all coupons well past the transition date.