DTV Transition Delay Is Now a Barometer For Obama’s Agenda

As he was moving into the White House, President Barack Obama began immediately pushing forward many key agenda items. We now have special envoys to the Middle East and Afghanistan, a nearly one trillion dollar economic stimulus package in the works, and an order to close down the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

One of the smaller items was expected to be a delay in the Digital TV Transition. About 4,500 low-power TV translators and small market local TV stations will still keep their analog signals on the air. But the 1,600+ full-power TV stations in the 210 Designated Market Areas (DMAs) are legally required to turn off their analog transmitters on February 17, 2009. The Obama administration has submitted a bill to delay the transition by four months, with a new shut-off date of June 12, 2009.

The Senate passed the bill earlier this week, but on Wednesday, January 28, the House of Representatives provided an initial set back. In an attempt to fast track acceptance, House Democrats tried to get the bill to the floor under a “suspension of rules” procedure, which requires a two-thirds majority. House Republicans, along with 13 conservative Democrats voted NO. Now the bill must go through committee and be submitted from the committee to the full House for an up or down vote, which only requires a majority for passage. Reports are that it will likely pass the second time through.

The result of this activity, however, is that headlines on Wednesday shouted “House Beats Back Obama DTV Delay Request.” Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity had a field day. The perception is that the Obama honeymoon is over, and it lasted barely one week.

This transition has been in the works since 1998, so it’s not taking anyone by surprise. If you’ve been watching any network TV over the past three months, you’ve been hearing about “the DTV Switchover” and all the local news teams have been providing educational “how to” features explaining that you need to take some kind of action. Cable TV, Satellite TV and TelcoTV services are doing likewise. It’s difficult for me to believe that anyone who is regularly watching TV does NOT know about the DTV Transition. So why does Obama want it delayed?

It turns out that there are several solid reasons. First, the previous administration set up a coupon program to provide $40 rebates to consumer households who need to purchase a Digital TV Converter box. They authorized 40 million coupons, but only allocated funding for 20 million. Duh! So now Congress needs to come up with $800 million in additional funds for DTV coupons at a time when a lot of other, much larger funding issues are currently being debated. More details about the Coupon Program can be downloaded at:

http://email.in-stat.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/hBOwC0HWHDe0K560HAcF0Eo