DTv Transition

[bicker]

So far, the government hasn't spent a penny of taxpayer money on converter boxes through the CECB program.

 

[Disney1fan2002]

I heard that there are about 3 million americans that still don't have a converter box. What is that percentage? About 1% of the US population. It seems to me, that if 99% of the population is all set for the change over, then there is no confusion.

 

[moburg]

So far, the government hasn't spent a penny of taxpayer money on converter boxes through the CECB program.

A History of the TV Converter Box Coupon Program
In 1996, after years of studies by government/television industry committees, U.S. Congress deemed Digital Television as an acceptable upgrade to the 50-year-old analog television broadcasting technology.

At that time, Congress authorized the distribution of an additional broadcast channel (for digital broadcasting) to each broadcast TV station which would allow for broadcasting in both analog and digital channels simultaneously.

In 1997, the U.S. government mandated that all public TV stations were to begin broadcasting digital signals by May 1st, 2003, giving stations almost 6 years to comply. More than half of the country’s 357 public TV stations missed the deadline. (Source: Current.org).

It wasn’t until The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (Approved by Congress and President Bush), that a final date of February 17, 2009, was set for all TV broadcasters nationwide to make a complete transition to digital television and switch off their analog broadcasts.

The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 allocated $1.5 billion to the TV Converter Box Coupon Program as a subsidy to consumers to help purchase up to two DTV converter boxes. The converter box would allow most existing analog television sets to continue to receive broadcast TV signals after the transition occurred on February 17th, 2009.

Additional contingency’s for allocation of funds to the coupon program were included if the original funds were exhausted.


And then there is this: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/otiahome/dtv/comments/dtvcoupon_comment0079.htm The NTIA calls them "Federally subsidized and taxpayer-supported digital converter boxes."

 

[bicker]

That only accounts for the chicken and egg situation: The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 specified that the cost of the coupons is to be covered by an allocation of a portion of the money raised from the spectrum auction, which was to be deposited into the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Fund. However, since the auction hadn't taken place yet (because it was determined that the government would get more money from the auction if the auction was held closer to the date when the spectrum would become available for use by the auction winners) and the auction proceeds would still take some time to make it into the fund -- but yet the coupons necessarily had to be issued significantly prior to transition, money had to be allocated to fund the coupons until the auction proceeds came in.

The law very explicitly projected how much money would be raised by the auction, and only allocated a small percentage of that amount for coupon coverage. The law also very explicitly prevented issuing of coupons beyond that anticipated portion of auction revenues. As a matter of fact, it was this program deficit provision of the law that prompted talk about delaying the transition in the first place: The program stopped issuing coupons because the number of coupons already used and currently outstanding but not expired exceeded that allocation you referred to, which, again was only a portion of anticipated amount of proceeds from the spectrum auction.

In the end, the auction raise $19 billion, so there is another $17.5 billion of auction proceeds that can be allocated for the CECB program, before we need to worry about taxpayer money going towards the converted boxes.

 

[DVC Sadie]

Yes, we are ready. I am so sick of watching tv and having that stream running through on top of my screen telling me to get ready.

If anyone isn't ready for the change by now then I don't think they'll ever be ready.