Excessive Fear
If you have watched television for more than five minutes in the past year, you have no doubt seen one of the millions of public service announcements heralding the impending switch to digital-only TV broadcasts. These announcements, which are aired on practically every channel on broadcast and cable, in nearly every time slot, tell viewers that beginning February 17, 2009, analog broadcasts will cease, and older televisions using only an antenna will no longer function. The advertisements make clear that cable and satellite subscribers with set-top boxes will still be able to watch TV, and viewers with newer televisions will also be fine. Only old TVs with antennas will stop working.
Today I read that this public awareness campaign is not going well. Apparently, Consumers Union thinks people are terribly misinformed about what will happen and how it will affect them.
“We need boots on the ground,” said Joel Kelsey, a Consumers Union policy analyst. Mr. Kelsey advocated armies of people, from firefighters to television industry personnel, going into homes and setting up converter boxes for consumers.
A number of people involved in the switch to digital think the Feb. 17 deadline will leave millions of Americans bewildered when their TVs stop working.
I disagree with these assertions that this is a significant problem, and I certainly do not think we need firefighters doing something so trivial, as though this were not the season for space heater-ignited infernos. It is claimed that 20 million American households still receive their television signals exclusively via antenna. I find this number very difficult to believe. I don’t know anyone who actually watches TV on a regular basis that doesn’t have at least basic cable. Even very poor people have cable. Actually, poor people especially have cable. The photograph above shows me in my apartment in 2000, when I was as very poor and my cupboards were always bare, and I had basic cable. (There was no way to get CBS or NBC in Gainesville at the the time without cable.) My guess is that the people who only have an antenna don’t watch much TV at all, and won’t notice their TVs don’t work next February. This includes the haughty people who never let you forget that they don’t watch any television, as though that is something to be proud of. I don’t hear this from people who are busy all day curing disease or feeding the hungry. They’re hanging out like everybody else – just not with the TV on. That isn’t to say that it won’t be inconvenient for them to have to replace their TVs, but if they have one of these old sets with rabbit-ears, they’ve gotten their money’s worth out of it. I’ve bought three different TV sets in the last eight years.
Here’s what I suspect is really happening and what will happen: people who actually watch TV on a regular basis know about this digital transition; they are biding their time before they make a new purchase. On February 18 they’ll get in their horse and buggy and ride to the general store and cash in their green stamps for a new set, and all will be well. Or, people in big cities where over-the-air signals offer a decent amount of programming will finally have to splurge and get a new set. This won’t be some Y2K nightmare scenario where everything will grind to a halt, and satellites will fall from the sky. I think the FCC and Consumers Union is overly worried.
Filed under: Rantings, Technology, Television on December 22nd, 2008
What it WILL be is the Craigslist event of the century for cheap TV buyers looking to upgrade.
Yeah, I suppose there’ll be countless CRT sets listed for almost nothing. I don’t like that people will have to spend money at a time when times are tough. They just kept pushing this back so long, and now here we are.