6.5 Million Households Given DTV Reprieve

KPBS | By KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published February 9, 2009 at 9:36 AM PST

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

Digital TV is here...well almost. Approximately 6.5 million American households currently would not be able to receive digital television. Therefore, the House of Representatives voted to push back t

Maureen Cavanaugh : Our first topic this morning is the delay in the digital TV transition . Last week Congress approved moving back the switch from analog to digital TV signals from the deadline of February 17 to June 12 of this year.

Now it's easy to poke fun at this delay. After all, the federal government had since 2005 to get us ready for this conversion. We've been seeing advertising about the switch for a full year, and there's even been a NASCAR race car sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission named "The Digital TV Transition" to raise awareness of the February 2009 deadline. So it's tempting to see this only as another display of spectacular bungling on the part of Washington's brain trust.

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But, if you think about it, how much do most of us really know about the digital transition anyway? If truth be told, there really is a lot of confusion about the topic, even among people who already get cable TV.

Guest

Keith York , KPBS TV program director.