bucy wrote: I thought that something like 80% of households got TV from somewhere other than terrestrial broadcast anyway. If that figure is in fact accurate, it almost makes me want to say "to hell with terrestrial broadcast and spend the $3B to subsidize cable or DSS for the few people that don't have it already." It seems like a huge waste of resources to convert all those transmitters to digital when most people will never tune in the signal in the first place.
Observations:
* 20% of 100m is still 20 million people. 3 billion / 20 million is $150/terrestrial user. And 100m is a conservative figure. That reduces the cost of a one-time converter, but not a long-term subscription.
* Lobbying parties. Do you really think this is just a fight between Broadcasters and the Government? I'm sure there are not any parties interested in encouraging the goverment to force modernization upgrades on millions of pieces of equipment, and million dollar equipment.
* Government power structures: The FCC loses significant clout if broadcast television goes away. The national infrustructure loses another pathway of the Emergency Broadcast System.
* Constituents: The poor are inconvenienced. Especially so for the rural poor.
* Broadcast money: Just follow the money. If it were more profitable for ABC to be a content-based cable&satellite-only network, like its' sister ESPN, don't you think the corporate overlords would have pulled that trigger? Even more so, local news and local programming -- still matters. Still make $$$. Radio stations, despite being a declining industry that knows its days are numbered, is still big business. A housemate just started work for one as an ad exec, so I've gotten a better picture. I would imagine the same is true of television broadcasting. The dissent about this kind of action is not "you'll put us out of business", it is "you're hurting our profits". RE: Senate Sets 2009 Digital TV Deadline - Yahoo! News | 
