Saturday, January 10, 2009

WILL DIGITAL T.V. SWITCHOVER BE DELAYED? (extra entry)

"...let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation." (From James 5:12)

Most of us have had our fill of all the television spots and various other public service announcements warning of the end of all analog television broadcasting on February 17, 2009. In fact, one of my earliest postings on this blog (in its early AOL Journal days in 2006) was a piece about this issue, warning that "television ends" in February 2009.

My son Jon has (in his unique style and fashion) strongly and emphatically stated for months that "It WON'T happen!" or "It's NOT going to happen!" Even so, he DOES have a digital converter for his bedroom T.V. as I do for my bedroom set, as well. (We have cable in the living room. I know, I know, that's a lot of T.V. sets, but what can I say?)

The bottom line is, Jon may be right about it "not going to happen" on February 17. I was stunned to read a small piece about this in the Saturday, January 10, 2009 MetroWest Daily News. The small piece stated that the incoming Barack Obama administration wants to DELAY the switchover as does Vermont's Independent socialist Senator Bernie Sanders.

You can read about this on Sanders' website at:

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=306438

Can you imagine if AFTER ALL THAT HYPE the switchover does not happen on February 17?!
IF it doesn't happen on February 17, how many people will ever take seriously any communications from the Federal government?

Well, the government is not ALL wrong about it. Boston area viewers know that Boston's FOX channel 25 has stopped all analog broadcasting already. Will others follow after February 17? Is Jon Baril right about "It WON'T happen!" I guess we will all have to "stay tuned" won't we?

1 comment:

Bob Baril said...

Since writing this post I did a little on-line research to see when Canada, for instance, is switching from analog to digital. Their switch will not happen until Aug. 31, 2011 and they are considering whether or not to have a converter box coupon program as the U.S. did. If Canada is not switching until the summer of 2011, I wonder why the U.S. believed we HAD to switch by Feb. 2009. (I realize the ORIGINAL U.S. plan called for a 2006 changeover which was later backdated to 2009.)