The FCC may not have done enough to promote next month’s transition to digital TV, but that doesn’t mean Your Government has given up on you! Congress has just asked for an additional $650 million to pay for more digital converter box vouchers.
Yup, Democrats in the House are trying to find some room in one of the half-dozen stimulus packages to ensure that folks have access to affordable digital TV converters. (Gizmodo has some Inside Baseball vis-a-vis why this whole conversion is taking so damn long.) Drudge has the sinister-looking prefix attached to the story, “Stimulous?” This, of course, implies that helping out the average American, making their life a little easier, isn’t worth taxpayer money. Heaven forbid the average, non-blog-reading guy didn’t know about the digital TV transition until recently, it’s not like he has other things on his mind.
Since when is having a TV essential to living? That would be one hell of a waste of money.
Why aren’t the promotional commercials informing over the air consumers the whole truth.
Since existing analog signals can travel greater distances, consumers who currently receive some sort of reception, may very well end up without any reception. Digital signals either reach the end user or they don’t. In other words, there will be a certain percentage of consumers that will be left without any television reception unless they opt for cable or satellite service. This is assuming that these services are even available or viable in your locale.
Remember the days when you could pull in a signal and the the reception may have been marginal at best. That option no longer exits with digital signals.
Lastly, for those of you who rely on over-the-air signals for emergency tv broadcasts of weather and emergency disaster information, forget it! Now one must go out and purchase a new portable device to hopefully receive the new digital signals.
For existing cable and satellite subscribers; your golden, no need to do anything except keep paying your bill.
affordable digital TV converters are available at walmart for fourty dollars, the buyer then gets a thirty dollar gift card to buy whatever they want.
why do the people in washington think that they have to provide 650 million to buy anyone a converter?
the way it works is the head of the household goes to work and gets paid, then he/she uses his/her earnings to buy what is necessary to run their household.
it is time for the working people in this country to
elect people who have no loyalty to either party and work for the people.
it’s plain to see that much of the “Stimulous” that
the democrats are pushing through is nothing more than buying votes to keep them in power for
years to come
wake up people, its time for a real change. country is on its way change that
If I had extra $$ to bet I would say that they are trying to soften up the FCC before they start in on the freedom of speech (talk radio) issue. I ‘m guessing that between the lines it reads something like any monies that are not used to buy converter boxes will be slipped into the pockets of those in control of the rules and regulations of that agency. That smacks of Chicago politics in it’s prime!!
Congress who? Can you be a little more specific? I’m preparing a contact list I can hand out to my customers for cunsumer complaints. Should I include a list of all 450 congressmen, and 200 senators, or Congressional leadership and State Representitives? Unless someone names specific Congressmen as being digital conversion kingpins, I’ll just have to hand my customers a “fuck-you” list of the complete current Congress, FCC, Federal and State Courts, and local landfills.