dmv wrote:
The Senate moved the digital TV transition one step closer to reality on Thursday, setting a firm date for television broadcasters to switch to all-digital transmissions.
They're going to make it happen, market be damned.
There are a couple of interesting levers being used here.
First, they regulate the broadcasters. Fine. They've been talking about this for many years, it is no surprise and has enough good interests for society that why not. The social interest is the reason why this won't "just happen", in a timely fashion, without legislation.
Broadcasters are not going to be happy, though, until their market is there too. That's the issue.
In this legislation, they are allocating $1-3B subsidies for analog-to-digital converters for existing sets. They also set fixed dates by which all televisions of a certain size have to be digital-ready (25-34" -- 4 months, 1 March 2006; up to 24" -- 16 months, 1 March 2007).
Fine. But my initial reaction from the blurb as the article loaded, is that they should just tax analog televisions out of viability -- +$50 for an analog set, -$50 for a digital-ready gets a $100 advantage; alternatively, subsidize converters (as they are) while paying for it through analog TV tax. It hurts the poor, but so does forced upgrades to their reception technology. Give them a rebate option -- like a discounted converter.
The question, really, is whether to lever the market to upset the balance on digital versus analog or to just ban the analog. I think we're seeing the effects of the first as the cost of recycling gets computed into CRTs versus LCDs. That debate has a difference social good basis, but a similar movement and a similar outcome. Except that adoption of LCDs is faster than HD-TV, I believe.
This is something that the nationals are rather indifferent to on a level of what they transmit out, but that every local station in the country hates. Their opinion (and it's correct) is that there are currently 12 VHF channels per market and I have never seen a market use all of them, and 60+ UHF channels per market, and I have never heard of ANY market coming close to using even a portion of those.
What the legislation does, it kills over air broadcast and makes it cable or satellite only. For people like me, what this means is that my TV just became a movie watching device. All I watch now is PBS anyway, and forcing PBS to update all of their broadcast equipment to digital will kill them. They barely stay afloat even subsidized.
Standardizing the tranmission over the satellites makes sense. Doing so in local markets does not. There is a ton of unused space now, this just makes more.
