Television Goes Digital Today: Are You Ready?

Good morning, this is Leigh Graham.  Diane Nilan is off today.

Today, by 11:59 p.m., all formerly analog television (i.e., those channels you can receive via antenna - "rabbit ears" - or those in the most basic cable packages) will switch to a digital format.  This has been coming for over one year, with ads and government subsidies set aside to help analog customers purchase the needed converter box to receive the new digital format.  Originally scheduled for February, the switch was pushed back until today, "due to a fear Americans — primarily the elderly and citizens in high-poverty areas, with older TVs and less access to the free coupons for the digital tuners — were unprepared."  As it turns out, any of us who depend on our local, public access channels - for emergency of government information, for instance - are also at risk for losing this essential lifeline.

Nielsen estimates that more than 2M households still aren't ready for the switch: "The affected households are likely concentrated in low-income, older and rural demographics. The market least ready, according to Nielsen, is Albuquerque-Santa Fe, where 7.6% of the households remain unready."  To make things worse, many cable channels are dropping coverage of public access stations to make room for new digital channels, more hi-def offerings, etc.  Municipalities around the country are in tense negotiations with them to stop what they see as a retreat from the promise that residents would not lose access to government and public education channels in the switch.

To me this is a double whammy for low-income households, many of them elderly and/or disabled and/or rural.  I think of my elderly, disabled aunt who lives outside Boston in subsidized housing on a fixed income.  I know that for multiple services I'd probably assume I had to pay for she calls up her town hall, her local police station, her council on aging, the housing authority, etc. for assistance. The only reason she's less likely to rely on public access stations for info on snow emergencies, etc., is because we live in such a dense media market where this info is broadcast on the local networks.  If we lived in a rural environment, she'd be a perfect representation of someone who would lose a needed, critical information channel with this transition.

For now, as the cable companies and local municipalities brace for the confusion wrought by this switch, many cable giants are offering free converter boxes for anyone who was originally told they wouldn't need one to keep the existing channels in their basic cable packages.  But this "goodwill" will eventually end.  At least, your local officials and cable customer service representatives are waiting for your call. In many places, non-profit groups or local governments are providing free transition services for low-income households (e.g., in Cincinnatti).

Find out more at www.dtv.gov or by calling 1-888-Call-FCC.

(Photo by videocrab)