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The Consumers Union (CU) has asked the heads of the congressional committee with telecommunications oversight and the current and future administrations to consider delaying the February 17 DTV transition date.
The CU asked that Congress consider a delay " 'until a plan is in place to minimize the number of consumers who will lose TV signals, particularly by fixing the flaws in the federal coupon program created to offset the cost of this transition.' "
According to many sources, the Obama FCC transition team has been working on the issue and has been considering the possibility of moving the date.
CU policy analyst Joel Kelsey has met with the transition team about the issue and they are " 'rightly concerned that this is a mess that they are now going to have to clean up in a very short time frame.' " The CU has suggested a delay of four months or so.
Incoming U.S. President Barack Obama has indicated that he wants to delay the DTV deadline, claiming that poor, rural and elderly residents will be unprepared for it so soon after he takes office on January 20. The big four networks, ABC, NBC, Fox, and CBS are all okay with Obama's transition team pushing the date back.
Congress would have to pass a new law to change the transition date, which President Bush signed into law almost three years ago. It might be difficult to change the transition date so late in the process, however. The broadcasting and cable industries as well as the government have spent millions of dollars and a lot of airtime on getting the word out on the February 17, 2009 date, putting it on websites, billboards, and even a race car. Some broadcasters have already made the switch early or are about to, and some of the broadcast spectrum has already been auctioned off.
Consumer electronics companies want Congress to stick to the February 17 date, explaining that there was an ample stock of converter boxes and that slowdowns in coupon distribution could be fixed. Consumer Electronics Association president Gary Shapiro says, " 'after years of coordinated work, billions of dollars of investment, and unprecedented consumer education, an eleventh hour change to the DTV transition would create enormous uncertainty for consumers.' " He adds, " 'the facts clearly support maintaining the hard date of February 17.' " Shapiro argues that the transition is on track and while it does face some challenges, the doom and gloom predictions are off-base.
Source: Broadcasting & Cable, 01/07/2009, Cartt, 01/08/2009, Broadcasting & Cable, 01/08/2009
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