I recently went to Omaha, Nebraska on a business trip… it happened to be during the time of what I would call the “original” Digital TV transition date… If you’ve watched ANY TV in the last 15 months or so you’ve most likely seen all the public service messages with people walking in dry cracked fields talking about how you would see nothing but static on the day after the transition. Earlier this month, about a week or so before the transition date, the Congress chose to extend the transition date to June 12th, 2009… Most people did NOT get the news of the extension… In Omaha, ALL of the TV stations converted on the original date of Feb 17th to save the costs of running two transmiitters to broadcast the same signal (one analog, one digital). Apparently, all of the advertising that the government spent lots of our tax dollars on — didn’t reach ALL of the viewers in the Omaha area… there were at least 2 calls to KUSA-TV asking why they weren’t on the air… this was according to a news report I heard on one of the local FM broadcast stations poking fun at the misguided people who didn’t get the message… I thought it was a hoot because there has been a blanket advertising campaign and not everyone got the message. I believe there will me more cases like this in June when ALL other full-power stations switch to the new digital signal.
The point I’m trying to make is that We the People foot the bill for all that advertising and it wasn’t 100% effective. — there will always be some who don’t get the message because they tune out the commercials. I believe the Congress messed up by extending the date because we’ve seen these ads for 15 months or more and now they’ve pushed the date out 4 months… Most assuredly, there will be more advertising to tell us of the fast approaching transition date which WILL confuse some who have gotten the message of the original date and will be ignored by others… all at our expense.