Journal 9, June 14

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/06/12/digital.TV/index.html

As of Saturday at 12:01am, all television had to switch to digital. Congress voted to delay the transission from the original February 17 conversion date because of the fact that almost 6.5 million homes were not ready for the transission. The Federal Communications Commission has been advertising the switch for some time now and trying to get citizens equipped with the proper technology so that the switch would be smooth.

Digital tv will also allow for ease of switching between watching regular tv and viewing television directly from the internet. This will open up many doors for independent networks and shows that will actually have a fighting chance against bigger more established networks.

The digital switch at first shocked many people, especially older citizens who really didn’t understand the reason or implications of the switch. I think the Federal Communications Commission could have done a better a job of explaining the purpose of the switch to citizens. However, people with satellite or tv service will be unaffected by the change.

The switch however was big business for the government as they solicited over twenty billion in auctions to sell off licenses for vacant frequencies abandoned by local users that could be used for broader commercial uses. Republicans were also against the delay on switching as they stated that citizens had years to prepare.

However for the lower income and elderly persons who were the majority people who had not switched by February 17, I believe that this shows the government did not do as good a job of informing and educating citizens about the switch. Inevitably, there are still some who still need to transission to digital tv, as of now, if you don’t have it than you are getting the snow white picture. It is definitely an evolutionary change in communications that surprisingly was mandated by the government. But once you see how much money the government made off of this, it is clear the implications as to the need for the switch can be questioned.


Sources:
http://topics.cnn.com/topics/digital_televisions