End of the road for analog, but first the potholes

Television's analog-to-digital broadcast transition is on, and going full-force. Local stations to broadcast networks, coast to coast and up and down the dial, are advising viewers to prepare themselves for the next major technological advance to hit our living rooms. More than a billion dollars has been invested in advertising the switch; the commercials run the gamut from glossed-up industry puffery about how pretty the pictures are going look to grim portents of doom and gloom (well, not doom and gloom, maybe, but lots of static and white noise) for those unfortunate TV-watching souls who deign to ignore -- or perhaps may not have noticed -- the rising alarm.

The federal government kicked in another billion or so to fund a coupon program that allowed the citizenry $40 discounts on the purchase of the converter boxes necessary for people who own an analog television, and don't choose to pay for cable or satellite service.

The sirens are sounding. The course has been set. On Feb. 17, switches will be flipped, signals will be stopped. From border to border, from sea to shining sea, a mighty roar is rising from the white-hot engines of the unstoppable locomotive of television's Next Big Thing as it winds up, and waits to be unleashed.

It's going to happen.

Unless, of course, it doesn't.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the federal bureau that is charged with administering the coupon program, ran out of funds on Jan. 5. Since that date, more than 100,000 people have been put on waiting lists for the coupons. These consumers are among the nearly 7 percent of American households who are not ready for the change to over-the-air digital television, according to statistics compiled by Nielsen research.

That means that in order to be ready for the switch on Feb. 17, around 7 million households will either have to pay full price right away for their digital converter boxes, wait for a coupon that might not come until after the conversion to receive the discount on the box, buy a TV with a digital tuner, or subscribe to cable or satellite programming.

Consumers Union has stepped in to the fray, suggesting that the transition to digital be pushed back to a later, unspecified date, and they've sent letters to Rep. Henry Waxman of California, Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, President Bush and the President-elect Obama, lobbying for such. In a Jan. 7 press release, the organization quotes one of its own policy analysts, Joel Kelsey, who says, "Everyone affected by the digital switch should be able to get their $40 coupons."

And certainly, that's not an unreasonable thing to request. In fact, especially in this economy, that's a fully-supportable position.

However, I'm not on board with the idea of pushing back the digital transition date from Feb. 17, especially without even a suggestion for a new one. While I do agree with the organization's assessment that when the switch happens, there will likely be more than a few people (yes, as high as 7 million or so counts as more than a few) who will be left with nothing but static on their screens, and questions, questions, questions.

The U.S. government, perhaps with the aid of the broadcast television industry, or even the companies that manufacture the converter boxes, should step forward now -- not "soon" or "right away," but NOW -- to make it as easy as possible for those people who cannot afford the needed equipment to receive it. (Some cable companies are offering to do this already by giving away the boxes on a first come-first-served basis, although, as far as I know, not in this area.) That, or possibly local television stations could be given authority by the FCC to continue to minimally broadcast on their analog signals for, say, a maximum of 90 days -- and no longer -- beyond the deadline, if the station so chooses. (Perhaps these broadcasts could be for regular news programs, like at noon, 6 p.m. or 10 p.m., as a way to provide information to viewers about the necessity of an upgrade to digital, and how to do it.)

There were bound to be problems with the transition from analog-to-digital at the consumer level; people have been wondering why their TVs aren't working since the beginning of the medium. I simply contend that having a hard-and-fast date established, then advertised as such, minimally ensured that broadcast stations would have to fulfill their mandatory equipment upgrades, and at least brought the issue to the attention of most, if not all, American households with televisions. Changing the date to some undetermined point in the future, to my mind, tells everyone involved that the original deadline didn't matter. And if that's the case, then why go through this switch at all?

The fact is that the change to digital broadcast TV is coming. It's been coming for several years, and nothing can stop that.

It's going to happen.

And the problems were going to happen, too.

It's how the problems get fixed that will determine if the switch was ultimately worth it to the public at large.