The End of Analog TV??

[-Demosthenes-]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6448213/did/7593620/

That’s the date[December 31, 2006] Congress targeted, a decade ago, for the end of analog television broadcasting and a full cutover to a digital format.

Is this Congress controling our industry too much, or is it just the government trying to imporve our lives??

the Japanese shocked American consumer electronics companies with trade-show displays of high definition television sets that delivered razor-sharp images and stunning audio. Everyone from Congress to the Wall Street Journal raised outcries: America’s favorite technology was being taken over by the then-fearsome Japan Inc.

They want to get rid of Anolog TV to make the digital market bigger so they can compete with other markets?

Public safety workers have been promised four of these channels...And finally, there’s a bonus for the U.S. Treasury as well—much of the new spectrum will be auctioned off to the highest bidders, raising billions of dollars.

So the government owns the channels if thtis law is passed?

To ease the transition, Congress generously gave all television broadcasters additional channel space so that they could keep broadcasting their analog signals while they installed and launched their digital channels. The deal was that they would give up their old channels when the transition was done.

Who should be invoved with this "deal"?

[Pangloss]

I'm a little unclear on exactly what you want this thread to be about, but I'll respond to a couple of points, and if they're off subject then feel free to steer accordingly, with my apologies.

 

So the government owns the channels if thtis law is passed?

 

No, the government already owns the airwaves under the auspices of "public trust", a very old concept that basically means that anything not owned by a private individual in this country is owned by the government. This raises interesting questions, and in fact I recently re-read some old Ayn Rand essays on the subject from the 1950s that seem equally viable today. But unfortunately this is a very old and ingrained concept at this point. The public is just not very likely to accept concepts like "permanent private ownership". As unpopular as things like condemnation through imminent domain are, the alternative is viewed by the majority as worse. So we're pretty much stuck with it.

 

To ease the transition, Congress generously gave all television broadcasters additional channel space so that they could keep broadcasting their analog signals while they installed and launched their digital channels. The deal was that they would give up their old channels when the transition was done.

 

Who should be invoved with this "deal"?

 

The issues at work here are actually a little more complicated than they may initially appear to be. For example, it may seem at first blush that Congress, in removing the additional channels at the end of 2006, is penalizing the local broadcasters. In fact it's exactly the opposite -- the broadcasters are the ones who want to dump the old analog stuff. The reps are trying to decide if they need to require the broadcasters to keep broadcasting their old signals a little longer in order to serve a still-reluctant public. (One congressman even suggested last year that federal funds be used to pay for set-top DTV tuners for low-income viewers!) The original agreement called for analog broadcasting to end at the end of CY06, IFF (if and only if) 75% of households had converted to DTV. It has become abundantly clear that this percentage will not be met by that date, which is the why the issue is being debated now, as opposed to next year (it also takes about that long for CONgress to decide anything, so this is "good").

 

Anyway, I guess the answer to your question is that the stakeholders are the broadcasters and the viewing public, with the federal government acting as intermediary.

 

The reason why "millions of dollars" are involved is that once the broadcasters are released from their obligation to provide the old analog signals, the government can then re-sell that bandwidth for other purposes in the form of FCC licenses to various corporations (highest bidder). Companies are already lining up to buy that bandwidth, which may actually sell for upwards of $17 billion (with a B, not an M).