BREAKING IMPORTANT GOVERNMENT-TYPE NEWS: Senate Votes To Delay Digital Television
We interrupt your reading of entertaining celeb news to bring you this mega-important message: The Senate, having nothing better to do, voted to approve the delay of all-digital, all the time television to the unwashed masses:
The Senate voted on Monday to delay next month’s transition to digital television until June 12 because some viewers would not be ready for the switch.The voice vote followed a call by President Obama’s administration to postpone the Feb. 17 date for major TV stations to stop sending traditional analog signals. Similar legislation awaits action in the House on Tuesday.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia who leads the commerce committee, said last week that he had reached agreement with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the top Republican on the panel, on the legislation. Some Republicans had opposed a delay, saying it would cause confusion by changing a long-planned date.
A federal program to subsidize digital equipment that some viewers will need has fallen short of money, and last week the government reported a waiting list of 1.4 million households.
More than 6.5 million homes are not able to receive digital TV programming, the Nielsen Company said last week. The figure is a decrease from last month, when Nielsen said almost 8 million could not receive it.
In the meantime, new figures that I just pulled out of thin air show that three-quarters of those 1.4 million households on the waiting list are there because they had to cancel their cable or satellite service due to the recession and losing their jobs and are now dependent upon antennas for their television needs. New information just obtained says they are now having to choose between entertaining programs, up-to-the-minute breaking news, weather bulletins, and food. They've also had to cancel their internets so they are not reading any news about the digital transfer, or lack thereof, on the interwebs. The People In Charge are hoping the analog signal reaches the televisions of those afflicted in time before their electricity is turned off for non-payment, in which case something called a newspaper will be used to spread the word as a last resort, but only if they can manage to scavenge yesterday's edition out of their neighbor's trash.
Plus, you know what this means...all those little digital date counter thingies in your local Walmart will now become hopelessly obsolete.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled snark.
Follow Technorati