February 17, 2009. D-Day for television. As in “Digital Day.” It’s coming.
Or at least, it was coming.
Now word has it we’ll be pushing this train wreck of epic proportions back to June 12, 2009.
The Internet audience might not be the right place to address my concerns about the switch to digital broadcast television. Why? Because you can obviously afford to pay an Internet Service Provider, provided you’re not in a library at the moment. This means you probably pay for cable or satellite service at home. Meaning the switch is taken care of for you. The Hoosiers most at risk for experiencing problems from the switch have absolutely no disposable income and are getting pretty far up there in years. But you’re hear, and you’re apparently willing to listen/read for a moment.
Let’s start with some background on the DTV switch. For television stations, it’s really no big deal. We’re already prepared; we’ve been broadcasting a digital signal for years now, all it will take to switch is to turn off the power on the analog transmitter.
What’s one of the huge problems? Education.
Consumer education could be the biggest hurdle for the process of switching from analog to digital broadcasts. The people who rely on broadcast television are usually lower class, older and/or live in rural areas where cable television isn’t an option or local stations are not available on satellite.
Local broadcast stations have been running “100-day countdowns” for the past 70-some-odd days to let Hoosiers know that the world would soon be coming to an end. To help educate viewers, PSAs have been running non-stop for the past few months. The spots provided viewers with an 800-number and a website to visit to get more information and coupons to help defray the cost of a converter box.
Well, the money ran out. Whoops.
And now Hoosiers living paycheck-to-paycheck can’t afford a converter box, meaning they’ll only be able to watch WALV. I don’t think I could take that much SkyTrak Weather Network.
I feel bad for the people who can’t afford their own converter box and want to keep watching television, I really do. And as part of a program called “Night Light,” safety wouldn’t be a factor. In a weather or other emergency we would be allowed to broadcast messages on our analog signals even after the shutoff date. But there is no right to television. There is no conspiracy to take the information away from you.
And that brings us to the second biggest problem. Hoosiers who don’t want a converter box on principle.
During our coordinated shutoff test of all major broadcast stations in Indianapolis, I helped answer phones up the street at WFYI. We were helping viewers make sure converter boxes were hooked up properly, and reassuring Hoosiers whose cable systems hadn’t yet upgraded their equipment.
But I received a lot of calls from people saying that it was completely unfair and a tactic the “liberal media” was using to keep hard working Americans in the dark. Some said they would never again watch “my” station, though the phone number was given out on WTHR, WISH, WXIN, WTTV, WNDY, WRTV and WFYI so I don’t know how they knew which station is my employer.
These Hoosiers have the means to change, they just won’t until the plug is pulled. They may protest a little in their own homes, or even call our stations, but eventually they’ll go down to Wal-Mart and buy the cheapest converter box they can find. Not so they can see local and national news (information which I think all people should be able to receive), but so they can watch CSI and Grey’s Anatomy.
I even had one person talk to me for fifteen minutes and end by telling me that she shouldn’t have to pay for television because it belongs to her. I tried to tell her that the airwaves belonged to her not the broadcasts, but she didn’t believe that. She said that she wasn’t going to pay for a converter box and was going to tell all of her friends not to buy one either. She even added, “maybe I just won’t pay my light bill this month.” I told her that was a terrible idea. A really terrible idea.
The idea of not having to pay for television signals sounds good on its face. But you didn’t get that TV in your living room for free. You had to buy the set. That FM radio you have wasn’t given to you, even though you own the airwaves the signals travel across. You’ve got to make the original investment. You aren’t entitled to television.
Why blame us?
For some reason everyone thinks the broadcasters made the decision and that we’re making out like bandits on this deal. You know what? It’s cost us millions of dollars to upgrade equipment and lease spectrum space from the American public. This was a big investment, and Congress is the group who authorized the change. If you want to be mad, WRITE THEM.
So now, after all this work that has been put into publicizing February 17, we’re going to delay the switch. Or so the Congress will declare early this week. Now we’re like the boy who cried “wolf!”
We’re going to have to start the countdowns all over again, and do more “soft shutoffs” so people can test their television sets. But at this point there’s NO MORE MONEY to help the people who can’t afford converter boxes. The government burned through the $1.3 billion allocated for digital converter box vouchers, and there are already 2.6 million Americans on the waiting list if they’re ever reissued. Nielsen says more than 6.5 million homes aren’t ready for the switch! (CNET)
If Congress delays the switch, we’re just going to keep delaying it for the next decade. Remember, this won’t be the first time it’s been pushed back. This is one of those moments where it just needs to be done. As our General Manager said on his blog:
TV stations across America have run millions of pubic service announcements, served up millions of web pages of information, conducted on-air simulations and manned phone banks. Anyone that isn’t prepared now is going to be in the same shape in four months.
Exactly.
Oh, and to answer the question posed in the title of this post, “no.”
