sascha segan

SASCHA SEGAN

Don’t Delay the DTV Transition

Sometimes you’ve just got to give people a hard deadline—it’s the only way to get things done. The Senate-approved delay in the transition from analog to digital television (DTV), from February 17 to June 12, won’t help the few people who still haven’t gotten the DTV transition memo, and it’ll hurt the much larger population of people who could benefit from new wireless technologies. Obama ran on the change platform. That change should start now. Let’s start with some numbers: The DTV transition has been publicized for two years now. Only 5.7 percent of Americans aren’t ready, according to Nielsen, and almost every one of them could become

DTV-compliant in about 45 minutes with a trip to Radio Shack or Best Buy. Yes, 5.1 percent of the country is holding up the other 94.3 percent. The DTV-unready customer isn’t a frail, helpless elderly person, the Nielsen survey says. Under-35s are much more likely than over-55s to lack converter boxes or new TVs. The problem and solution are both pretty simple. The problem: Your TV is more than two years old, and you don’t have cable or satellite. The solution: A $45 converter box available online or at your local electronics store. There, done. Nobody needs to buy a new TV, though we got reviews of some under-$500 choices for you if you want one. As for the whole hysteria about needing new antennas, wait a little while. Some channels now broadcasting weakly will ramp up their signals after the transition, and some channels broadcasting on UHF will switch to VHF, which covers long distances better. According to an April 2008 government report, 32 percent of digital channels are waiting until the transition to deliver full broadcast strength. Many grumpy people are outraged that they may have to buy a converter box. But this is the first major TV transition we’ve had in 50 years. That’s a long time for a technology to remain static. For the common good, TV stations should clear off some of the radio spectrum so other people can do more stuff with it. Five percent of the population shouldn’t hold that up. Switching to over-the-air digital TV is actually pretty awesome. I got rid of my cable TV and went to over-the-air digital

recently, supplemented by an AppleTV with Boxee for cable-TV content. I get many more channels than I did before digital, including five PBS channels instead of one. Some of them are even in high definition, for free. I think over-the-air digital TV is terrific. Complainers also don’t seem to understand why we’re doing this in the first place. For a while now, TV stations have been allowed to squat on two channels instead of one. When the transition occurs, they’ll have to give up one of their two channels, and most of that spectrum will go to new wireless networks. Some of it will go to TV for cell phones. Some of it will go to Internet connections. Some of it will go to public safety uses. Even if you’re not going to use that stuff, you have to agree that it’s a better use of the space than broadcasting the same thing twice to the same people. And it will serve much more than 5.7 percent of the population. Of course, some of those 5.7 percent just don’t understand what’s going on. The government has botched the education campaign around DTV and screwed up the associated converter-box coupon program. The coupons were confusing to order, expired too soon, and the program ran out of money. This is irritating, and the government should allocate more money for coupons immediately. I’ve also heard insanities like “DTV requires a special antenna” (wrong), “DTV will require you to get digital cable” (wrong), and “DTV is HDTV” (wrong). But three months more will not give us any magical explanations we didn’t have for the past two years. Implementing a much better idea, the FCC is taking a positive step by ordering stations to turn on “analog nightlights” throughout the country. This order requires some analog stations to stay on, broadcasting a fixed message about how to get a converter box. The FCC should extend the order by demanding at least one nightlight in each TV market. Broadcasters are complaining about the cost of keeping those nightlights on, but delaying the transition will cost even more. More delays will not help this problem. More bureaucracy, more confusing coupons, and more misleading ads from cable companies will not help this problem. Only one thing will help this problem: America must convert. A small percentage of people can’t get a TV signal. They go to their local electronics store. They get boxes. Problem solved. As long as there are deadlines, there will be procrastinators. My college roommate usually wrote his papers in marathon stretches leading up to the very last minute they were due. (He also always got A’s.) If you extend the deadline, procrastinators will just procrastinate further.

TV stations should clear off some of the radio spectrum so other people can do more stuff with it. Five percent of the population shouldn’t hold that up.

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