Switch To Digital TV Transition Not Ready For Prime Time

By Christine Uthoff

Published: January 9, 2009

U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher said Thursday that long before the Feb. 17 switch to digital broadcasting, Congress must act to prevent hundreds, if not millions, of Americans from losing free access to television.

“We are going to need to legislate – during the month of January – a solution for this,” Boucher, D-Va., told the Herald Courier. Just hours earlier, President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team had sent letters to Congressional leaders urging a delay in the federally mandated Feb. 17 switch.

Boucher, of Abingdon, promised that, as chairman of the House subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, – an appointment he received Thursday – he would set a priority to correct what he called the government’s mismanagement of the digital transition.

“Digital television transition was badly mismanaged by the Bush administration,” Boucher said. “ It has been clear now for many months that the program would run out of money. I have warned about that for about a year.”

An estimated 80 million households in the nation depend on over-the-air broadcasts, Boucher said, but the government’s converter box coupon program – providing two $40 coupons to each household – allocated only enough money for 30 million to 40 million.

Boucher said Congress’ options are:

* Appropriating on an emergency basis the money needed to meet a larger-than-expected demand for the coupons, which would require spending cuts elsewhere.

* Waiving the anti-deficiency act, which prohibits agencies from spending beyond what Congress has approved.

* Or doing what Obama’s team recommends: Delaying the digital transition to a new date several months into the spring.

“One of the top priorities for the subcommittee will be determining which approach is best, or which combination of approaches is best,” Boucher said Thursday.

As part of that effort, Boucher will meet early next week with broadcasters from the Tri-Cities area.  He also has invited Federal Communications Commissioner Michael J. Copps to talk about the digital transition during a town hall meeting at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Bristol Virginia City Hall, 300 Lee St.

The meeting will be carried live on WJHL.

Most if not all of the broadcast stations in the Tri-Cities are ready for digital, but there is a looming concern that about 21,000 households in the region are not.

The Nielsen Co., which tracks television viewing, reports that, as of December, about 6.8 percent of U.S. TV households, or 7.7 million homes, remained unprepared for the digital switch, meaning they have no televisions capable of receiving a digital signal.

Reports from Nielsen show that includes about 21,000 homes in the Tri-Cities area.

“It’s actually a surprisingly large number of people who still use the old-fashioned antennas,” said Neal Boling, news director at WJHL-Channel 11, the Herald Courier’s news partner in Johnson City.

In an unprecedented move, WJHL and the region’s other television stations have banded together to educate the public about the transition.

“It’s clear that there are a number of people who are still confused about the switch,” Boling said.

Mandated by Congress in 2005, the digital transition was designed to free the airwaves for emergency communications. Work on the project began as early as 1996.

For consumers, digital broadcasts promise sharper, more efficient pictures and the possibility of more channels per network. But the $1.5 billion federal program to wean the nation off the analog signals by next month hit a major snag last week when the agency managing the project, the Commerce Departments’ National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced it had run out of money to back the coupons.

More than 1 million coupon requests are now on hold. And the Obama transition team estimates that number will climb to 5 million by early February.

“There is insufficient support for the problems consumers (particularly low income, rural and elderly Americans) will experience as a result of the analog signal cutoff,” John Podesta, co-chairman of the Obama transition team, said in the letter sent to Congressional leaders. “With coupons unavailable, support and education insufficient, and the most vulnerable Americans exposed, I urge you to consider a change ... to the cutoff date,”

Also this week, the Consumer’s Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, formally urged Congress to delay the switchover, citing a litany of problems including the coupon program’s lack of money.

And the National Association of Broadcasters has urged Congress to repair the problems.

“One thing is certain, there have been far more applications sent to the TV Converter Box Coupon Program than anyone who designed the program would have expected,” the association wrote in a letter to Congress.

Many broadcasting companies oppose a delay. They have spent billions preparing for the transition and are eager to turn off their old analog signals. They’re pressing for Congress to provide more money to make sure people who need coupons get them.

Boling, news director at WJHL-News Channel 11, said Thursday he believes Congress will heel to the pressure and provide the requested delay, “particularly after the news this last week that the government had run out of coupons.”

But he said, “the bottom line is that if they were to suspend the switchover it really doesn’t affect anything that we do as a television station as far as our public education and outreach efforts.”

Tampa Tribune reporter Richard Mullins and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Christine Uthoff can be reached at or (276) 645-2546.

YOU SHOULD KNOW

Who: FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps
What: Town hall meeting in Bristol to increase awareness about the upcoming transition to digital television.
When: Tuesday, Jan. 13, 10 a.m.
Where: Bristol Virginia City Hall, 300 Lee St.
Details (or for accommodations for those with disabilities): E-mail or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice), 202-418-0432 (TTY).