Congress Delays Digital TV Mandate

Congress added a four-month delay to the upcoming switch to digital TV this week, citing customer confusion, unstaffed call centers, and 6.5 million unprepared households.

Fourteen million households depend on analog TV, and the government mandate to switch to digital is now four years old. The required switch is not merely due to a customer desire to be able to examine the pores of their local newscasters -- it is part of a government effort to clear the airwaves for emergency responders and telecom companies, who have paid the government $19 billion dollars for the right to use them.

But despite the government's best efforts -- including a $1.34 billion dollar converter box coupon program -- millions of Americans remain clueless and unprepared for the switch...

Which leaves many of us thinking: So what? Since when is there a constitutional right to television? The time has come and passed, and if you can't figure out how to buy a converter after billions of taxpayer dollars spent on awareness campaigns and $40 coupons, then maybe you will figure it out when your TV gets switched off -- which it should be on February 17th. But no. Bring on the billions of dollars in more coupons for Pemberville, Ohio!