Sunday, November 27, 2005
House Sets Cut-Off Date for Analog TV
The House of Representatives early today (Friday) voted to set December 31, 2008 as the cut-off date for television stations to complete the transition from analog to digital TV. A similar bill, passed by the Senate, calls for an April 2009 cut-off. Lawmakers from the two houses will now meet in hopes of reaching a compromise. Today's vote also provides for nearly $1 billion to help low-income consumers purchase settop boxes to convert digital signals so that they can be viewed on older TV models.
Is it just me, or shouldn't the free market dictate the switch, and not government mandates and subsidies. The costs for these converter boxes better come oput of thge revenbue generated when the FCC sells the old analog bandwidth to third party customers.
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