Today is the day when every new television set shipped for sale in the United States must have a digital tuner.
Big deal? You bet.
And it's about time. In just 718 days, every existing analog TV set that receives signals through an antenna will go dark unless it's hooked up to a converter box. Why? Because the nation's broadcasters will switch to a new digital transmission system Feb. 17, 2009.
Those digital-to-analog converters aren't available yet and probably won't be until 2008, industry leaders said yesterday. And even though Congress approved $1.5 billion for vouchers to help Americans buy the boxes, there still are no regulations that specify how they should work, or how people will go about getting them.
Does this sound like the recipe for a political mess? The DTV Transition Coalition is obviously worried about it. This group of broadcasters, TV makers, retailers, cable TV networks and civil rights organizations gathered in Washington yesterday to launch a public education effort with the motto "No Viewer Left Behind."
One reason for their concern was a survey by the National Association of Broadcasters. It showed that most people affected by the switchover - including millions who can't afford cable service or don't want it - were only vaguely aware that their TVs would turn into doorstops. And very few at all knew it would happen in less than two years.
"Disproportionately, the elderly, the poor and the disadvantaged will find themselves in the dark through no fault of their own," said Nancy M. Zirkin, vice president of the Leadership Council on Civil Rights, a member of the DTV coalition. "Some 20 million viewers, people like your aunt, your grandmother ... will be cut off from the great communications medium of the 20th century."
Here's how it works. Under a deal worked out with Congress in 1996, the nation's 1,700 local broadcasting stations are replacing their 70-year-old analog transmission technology with a new digital system that's incompatible with traditional analog TVs sets.
This won't be a problem for people with cable or satellite service, because their providers will still deliver a signal their TVs can display. But it will affect the 15 percent of the nation's households that get all their TV the old-fashioned way --- over the air.
They'll have to buy new digital sets or pick up converters that receive digital broadcasts and convert them into analog signals. The same goes for millions of cable customers with second or third TVs that use antennas.
