Signs will need changing, now that the DTV transition will be delayed until June 12
The second time was the charm for approval of a delay in the DTV transition. The U.S. House of Representatives voted 264 to 158 on Wednesday to delay the transition from the impending February 17 date to June 12, according to MSNBC.
The vote comes after the Senate had voted, for the second time, last week to delay the transition in which the FCC would shut down the analog broadcast signals. The first time around, the House had defeated the bill by not generating two-thirds voter approval.
According to the most recent numbers from Nielsen, almost 6 percent of households still weren’t ready at all for the digital transition. Part of that could be the big mess the government’s DTV coupon program has created, despite being around for a while now and people having known about the switch for a couple of years.
The bill now goes on to President Obama for his seal of approval, which we’re guessing he’ll do with a smile considering his team originally questioned the February 17 deadline readiness and recommended the delay.
The bill will also allow households to reapply for government DTV converter box coupons that had expired, which could be plenty of people who may not have been aware of the 90-day expiration on those.
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has issued a statement in response to the delay, pledging “full support for a successful transition to digital television” and that they will update all marketing materials quickly.
“As CEA has repeatedly cautioned, this date change will inject uncertainty into the market and may result in a shortage of converter boxes, because manufacturers and retailers planned box inventory based on a February 17 transition date,” says Gary Shapiro, CEO.
“CEA urges Congress and the Administration to take the necessary steps to ensure converter box availability and to urge consumers to act immediately to enjoy the benefits of DTV.”

Pathetic decision making up top.
If some people won’t spend a couple of twenties on a converter box, and this stops us again from going forward, how are we to persuade the citizenry to adopt other new technologies, electric and hybrid autos for example?
Congress and the new administration must buck-up.
At least the feds aren’t mandating that stations have to broadcast in both until June 12th, they are only saying that the mandated analog cutoff date has been changed to June 12th. 137 stations have already shut off their analog signals, and the FCC rekons that it’s heard from 276 stations that will still pull the plug as planned on Feb 17th.
So really, some people who haven’t switched yet, will have their tv’s go black on Feb 17th anyway. The real difference is that if enough people complain to one station, they could turn the analog signal back on until June 12th if they want to.
Let’s delay it so all these local stations can keep spending tons of money to broadcast both signals…it’s good for the economy. Here I was getting excited about maybe getting some stations in better when they got to cut the power to their analog signal’s!
“According to the most recent numbers from Nielsen, almost 6 percent of households still weren’t ready at all for the digital transition.”
Almost 6 percent!! Wow let’s delay this until 2020 then maybe we can have it down closer to 2 percent. This is such a complete waste of our government’s time and taxpayers’ dollars.Let’s cater to the less than 6 percent of the population that did not take the time to do what the other 94 percent did.
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Ya okay lets get real I hear alot of complaining about this set back but what you must understand is that people in the US right now are loosing thier jobs left and right so yes it will hurt some people to fork out 50.00 for a box for their TV when 50.00 can mean food on their table for a few days or put toward a bill they need to pay. how much more is the government going to tell the people they need to do before they relize that they are the problem not the sulution. If it not broke dont fix it! Oh and yes I have a 50’ DLP HDTV so I dont need the box but some people need their money not some box they are being forced to by just to watch TV