Professor says TV conversion

will hurt low-income viewers

despite release of

government coupon
By Scott Nicholson
nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

The conversion to digital television is a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, but many consumers are more immediately concerned with how it will affect their television viewing.

On Feb. 17, 2009 all television stations will stop broadcasting analog signals and will only transmit digital signals.

While the shift will open up more bandwidth for communications signals, it’s left some viewers fidgeting with their rabbit ears and wondering how they will pay for a medium they used to get for free.

Larry Cornelison, engineer for the Appalachian State University Department of Communications, said the federal government is basically changing the way television signals are transmitted over the air, narrowing the bandwidth and using different frequencies so more bandwidths can be sold to the cellular communications industry and for use in future technologies and emergency communications.

“They’ll make billions of dollars,” Cornelison said. “They’re freeing up bandwidth to sell it. Each television station got ‘x’ amount of space.”

The change to digital created confusion for television stations as much as for consumers, because originally there was no requirement that stations broadcast in high definition.

“Digital and high-definition are not the same thing,” Cornelison said, noting that some broadcasters thought they’d be able to squeeze more channels out of their available bandwidth by using digital signals, but high-definition signals took up more of the alloted bandwidth.

People who use rooftop antennae or “rabbit ears” on top of their sets to receive signals will not be able to get television signals unless they either convert to digital-capable sets or buy a converter box.

According to U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx’s (R-NC5) office, the federal government has established a converter-box coupon program for households with analog TVs that will need a special converter box.

All U.S. households may request up to two $40 coupons for the purchase of a digital-to-analog converter box.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration began to issue the $40 coupons last week.

Households with an analog TV set connected to cable or satellite service will continue to receive a viewable image after the transition and do not need to purchase a converter box. All digital TV sets are also ready for the DTV transition.

Cornelison said he expects the coupons to cover about half the cost of the box and be costly to the government, though the money will be more than made up through sale of bandwidth to communications companies.

“Most major stations are already simulcasting (in analog and digital),” Cornelison said. “A lot of them have gone ahead and converted. It will be costly for stations to convert, and a lot of small-market and even mid-market stations will go black.

“A lot of mid-market stations that are getting 1 to 2 percent of the audience don’t have a million dollars to upgrade, and it will be hard for UHF stations.”

Cornelison said one of the early concerns was that low-income people would be unfairly deprived of an easily available source of information, news and entertainment. “There’s an estimated 13 million people that aren’t ready,” Cornelison said.

He also predicted there would be a temporary boom in new television sales, as consumers scrambled to upgrade. However, he believed it would lead to a glut in the market, possibly driving prices down, and will also create declining sales for the next five years or so, since many consumers will have new sets.

“The winners are the government, the telecommunications industry, and those who sell TVs and converter boxes,” Cornelison said. “The losers, as usual, are the poor people, who were getting the analog system for free. They could go to the flea market and get an old set and use rabbit ears, and now they’ll wake up one day and turn it on and it won’t work.”

The digital-to-analog converter boxes are expected to cost between $50 and $60 each.

Households that request the $40 converter coupons from the NTIA will receive a list of local retailers that sell the converter boxes. The converter box coupons expire 90 days after they are issued.

Converter box coupons can be requested online, by phone or by mail. The coupons can be requested at www.dtv2009.gov or by calling 1-888-DTV-2009 (1-888-388-2009). For more information about the DTV transition, visit the Federal Communications Commission’s Web site at www.dtv.gov, or call (888) 225-5322.