With the Feb. 17 switch to all-digital television signals heading for a delay—most likely until June—TV stations are contending with a whole new world of uncertainties and potential costs. When President-elect Barack Obama last week called for a delay, media companies including News Corp., NBC Universal...
Posted to
The Business of Television
by
News
on
Sun, Jan 11 2009
Filed under:
Filed under: Broadcast, Digital, DTV, Print Edition, FCC, NTIA, John Podesta, Department of Commerce, Brack Obama, TV Stations
Consumers Union is asking Congress and the White House to delay the digital TV transition from Feb. 17, citing problems with the government coupon program for DTV converter boxes and other worries. In letters today to President George W. Bush, President-elect Barack Obama and U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman,...
Posted to
The Business of Television
by
News
on
Wed, Jan 7 2009
Filed under:
Filed under: Broadcast, Digital, DTV, Barack Obama, NTIA, Henry Waxman, Ed Markey, Department of Commerce, Consumers Union, George Bush
In a new challenge to the digital TV transition, the government’s program offering $40 coupons for TV converter boxes is out of money, weeks faster than anyone expected. The Department of Commerce today announced that it now has committed the entire $1.34 billion available for the coupons and is starting...
As crunch time approaches in the country’s switch to all-digital television signals, Meredith Atwell Baker is in the middle of the maelstrom. As the person heading up the coupon program subsidizing converter boxes for analog TV owners at risk of losing their signals on Feb. 17, Ms. Atwell Baker is in...
As President-elect Barack Obama juggles a cratering economy and two wars, broadcasting and consumer groups are throwing him another sticky issue—the impending switch to digital over-the-air broadcasting. While less than 1% of TV viewers lost their signals during the Sept. 7 DTV test in Wilmington, N...
About one out of 12 U.S. households remains unprepared for the switchover to all-digital television broadcasts next February because those households do not own either a digital television or a set-top box that converts digital signals to analog for older TV sets, Nielsen Co. said today. Almost 10 million...
Democratic congressman are questioning how the Bush administration suddenly realized it is not going to have enough money to pay for administering the coupon program for the digital TV transition. With a House Energy & Commerce Committee panel slated to hold a hearing tomorrow on the status of the...