From what I gather, Congress passed a bill that mandates TV broadcast companies to only air programs in digital media. This is forcing many consumers to convert their old televisions to digital with a converter box and a convenient grant from the government to cover the cost of their conversion. So, everyone is paying for a few people to upgrade and receive digital TV. This made me ask a few questions:
Why don't the broadcast companies air in digital now, without this mandatory conversion? I have an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering, and just like how digital cameras took over for film cameras it is simply more efficient and cost effective to broadcast in digital. (Most people don't realize this, but phone companies converted to digital years ago because you could get many times the amount of signals on one line as opposed to analog.) Well, I am assuming that the broadcast companies didn't want to convert to digital on their own because they would loose the business of people that only had analog TV's (the radio this morning said "millions of viewers"). So the decision to convert was a simple cost vs. benefit analysis for them: they could save some money by broadcasting in digital but loose customers. It appears that they chose to stick to analog.
But the story goes on from here. If Congress were to pass a bill that mandated digital TV and gave the consumer the means for automatic conversion (paid for by the taxpayers), then the broadcast companies could have their cake and eat it too. They could save money, offer more programs, and not loose any customers under the direction of Congress. Time to call senators!!
These are all thoughts that I had when I first heard about the issue, so I did a quick search as to why Congress passed this bill. Why was the public so ready to pay for these conversions so that the broadcast companies could reap all of the benefits and pay none of the cost? Here is what I found from the FCC's website:
"Congress mandated the conversion to all-digital television broadcasting, also known as the digital television (DTV) transition, because all-digital broadcasting will free up frequencies for public safety communications (such as police, fire, and emergency rescue). Also, digital is a more efficient transmission technology that allows broadcast stations to offer improved picture and sound quality, as well as offer more programming options for consumers through multiple broadcast streams (multicasting). In addition, some of the freed up frequencies will be used for advanced commercial wireless services for consumers."
The first sentence is what is known as the "Bait", the second and third sentences are known as the "Switch". Techniques commonly used by marketing and used car salesmen. First sentence hides the nasty medicine of taxpayer dollars, the next two sugar coat the pill.
I am upset with our congressmen apparently swallowing this first sentence without notice of the rest. This will "free up frequencies for public safety communications"? As with most of you, I grew up in the analog age where my afterschool cartoons were periodically interrupted by the FCC testing their emergency broadcast system. This seemed to work just fine. Are more frequencies really neccessary? Moreso, I think back to any of the emergencies that I have witnessed in my lifetime and it wasn't the emergency broadcast system that brought me the information, it was regular TV networks that would interrupt the programming for up-to-date news. They were the people that were on the ground after 9/11 interviewing people and airing presidential speeches. There might have been an FCC requirement to air some of the material, but any network would have lost viewers if they didn't because every American was glued to thier televisions. It was in their best interest to bring stories of emergencies to the proper audience because that is what people wanted and needed to hear.
This issue seemed to fly beneath most people's radars because there wasn't a lot of the population effected (I think most people have bought a TV in the last 5 years...it was probably digital already) and the overall cost of converting a million analog TV's is peanuts compared to the normal spending of the government. More disturbingly, people seem to be getting used to the idea that government is encroaching more and more into our lives and it appears to be alright if they use the words "public safety". We need to look at what Congress is doing more closely and start realizing that every foothold that the government takes is one that we will not get back easily. I have now conditioned myself to raise skepticism any time the words "public safety" are mentioned. It appears to be a good carrot to use when leading folks blindly off a cliff.
---TK
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