Well sports fans, it's official. The transition to Digital TV has been delayed for 4 months. Knew that was coming. This delay is going to cost PBS a bundle...around 22M.

Quoting eagle61397:

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Quoting 8ballMax:

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Well sports fans, it's official. The transition to Digital TV has been delayed for 4 months. Knew that was coming. This delay is going to cost PBS a bundle...around 22M.

Not only is it going to cost PBS 22M, but all the other networks will have to eat the cost of running both digtal and analog, just that PBS relies on grants and funding "from you, thank you." I believe the coupon program was a failure to begin with and what they should have done was give tax credits to people who either bought a HDTV or converter box instead, if the government was going to hand out money.

I agree...it's a complete bust. The Government was probably thinking this program would spur sales of HDTVs which would lessen the need for the coupons. "Little did they know" (yeah, right) that the economic downturn would put a damper on HDTV sales.

When the coupon program was written, they wanted to limit the taxpayer handouts to two converter boxes per household. The economy was still in reasonable shape (and congress/administration was in denial) and they thought more families would buy TVs with digital tuners and the buying rush would help reduce the cost of the TVs. The failure here is not of the coupon program but of the economy. Given a choice beteen a $10 to $20 converter (or without a coupon, $50 to $60) and a $300+ TV, people choose to save their money. WalMart, Radio Shack & others have been struggling to keep the boxes in stock due to higher demand than anticipated, and TV costs are dropping even more as unsold sets remain on showroom floors and warehouses.

All TV stations, as well as the networks, are going to be hit hard by this delay.

Just so people are not overly confused this only passed in the Senate so far.  It still needs to go thru the house before its gets to the President to sign.

        Yeah it's like when you buy a car you can't really afford, what does it matter if you throw in the fancy GPS system and 7.1 channel sound.,, It's just a few thousand more..

Quoting Dr Pavlov:

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Quoting 8ballMax:

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Well sports fans, it's official. The transition to Digital TV has been delayed for 4 months. Knew that was coming. This delay is going to cost PBS a bundle...around 22M.

Hey we have all the money in the world, if you don't believe it just ask Congress and POTUS.

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They are printing as fast as they can....

Quoting Dr. Killpatient:

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A Very Simple Flowchart Explaining The Digital TV Transition

Can't get any simpler than that .

A little off topic but Roscoe Bartlett said the following to a Republican House Member meeting with the President.

Said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md.: "Mr. President, I probably come at this from a slightly different perspective. I remember when FDR beat Hoover in 1932. So I remember the Great Depression very well. I don't remember any of the many government programs affecting the course of the Depression. Government programs didn't work then, I don't know why we think they would work now. Mr. President, I think our obsessive borrowing has fully mortgaged my kids and my grandkids. Now we're working on mortgaging my two great-grandkids. Mr. President, I think it's more than a little bit selfish to try to solve our economic problems which we created by burdening future generations yet to be born."

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