Tonight is the celebration of yet another Jacked Up Bush Administration Policy: The DTV Transition. Millions of people, many in rural areas or poor or in vulnerable populations (elderly) are now left out and lack television reception. Its like 3% of the population has had television, still a key toward being informed and in some cases being safe, yanked out of their homes for no good reason.
A Bush Adminstration policy that has unintended consequences, hurts the people it was supposed to help, and harms the most vulnerable first. I've never heard of such a thing. In extended, the real story about the DTV transition and the lack of progressive voices that led to today.
First, a few missives to those, even in the progressive community, who continue to dismiss or even berate those left out of this transition. Let's see some of the most common arguments:
You've had two years to make the switch, its your fault if you can't get a TV signal.
Not really. First of all, the people who are most likely left out of this, are those who are most vulnerable- the elderly, people with disabilities, who will not understand until their TV goes off. Second, are people in rural areas who followed all the rules and, guess what, still can't get a signal. That's because, and remember, we progressives believe in science...DTV signals behave differently than analog. With analog, you got snow and ghosting until the far edge of the signal- here in Kansas, I remember one weird morning in the 70s getting a Tennessee station for a few minutes. Not so with digital- once signal degrades to a certain point, it disappears:
Many intermittent signal fading conditions, such as the rapid-fade effect caused by reflections of UHF television signals from passing aircraft, will not produce intermittently-snowy video, but potential intermittent loss of the entire signal, which most receivers will display as a frozen ("paused") image or a black screen for the duration of the signal loss.
Multi-path interference is a much more significant problem for DTV than for analog TV and affects reception, particularly when using simple antennas such as rabbit ears. This is perceived as "ghosting" in the analog domain, but this same problem manifests itself in a much more insidious way with DTV.
So many people in mountainous or rural areas will be SOL with DTV, even if they followed all the steps necessary.
You can just get broadband and download all your favorite shows.
Great. Except many rural areas also don't get broadband. Maybe the Bush Administration should have thought of that first. Also, it doesn't do jack to help you get up to date emergency weather broadcasts (i.e. tornado warnings) and local news. And many of the people impacted are not net savvy enough to go to the appropriate sites to be informed. They rely(ied) on their TV. Not anymore. Those tests of the emergency broadcast system were there for a reason.
This system has been around for 70 years, its time for a change, let's get on with it.
I was under the impression that giving the PEOPLE a choice was a key progressive value. Many people have NO CHOICE but to now get cable and satellite. Putting money in the hands of many of the people who wanted this in the first place. A big corporate interest lobbying the government for something that hurts a group of people and forces them to pay? That never happens. And since when do progressives judge the value of people's ability to contribute to our country based on their access to technology? Doesn't seem like a progressive value to me.
Further, cable companies are now throttling back their analog support, meaning that basement TV for the kids that used to get 57 channels (thanks Bruce) will soon get 15 unless you pony up for another converter box. Again, a corporate entity taking advantage of a govt mandate? Who knew?
We need all those frequencies for emergency channels, so its a necessary evil.
Following the analog switch-off, the FCC has reallocated channels 52 through 69 (the 700 MHz band) for other communications traffic,[8] completing the reallocation of broadcast channels 52–69 that began in the late 1990s. These channels were auctioned off in early 2008, with the winning bidders to take possession of them in June 2009, as of February 11, 2009. Four channels from this portion of the broadcast spectrum (60, 61, 68, and 69) will be held for reallocation to public safety communications (such as police, fire, and emergency rescue). In addition, some of the freed up frequencies will be used for advanced commercial wireless services for consumers, such as Qualcomm's planned use of former UHF channel 55 for its MediaFLO service.[7][9]
Yeah, 4 of 'em, the rest auctioned to big media companies. So let's see who wins:
- Big media/broadcasting/cable (I promise your cell phone and cable bills will not go down because of this)
- Electronics manufacturers (people buying coverters and new TVs)
Who loses?
People in rural areas, the poor and economically vulnerable.
But it didn't have to be that way. Low-powered analog translators, long opposed by the Bush Admin and the FCC, could have been allowed. Less frequency could have been auctioned (i.e. the commercial part) and a few stations grandfathered in, especially in the west.
Sounds like a perfect Bush era policy.