Congress has set the date for switching over from analog to digital TV. On February 17, 2009, all of the analog TVs will go dark. All of the bandwidth being used by over the air broadcasts is being auctioned off to other vendors for things like wireless Internet or (and I can't complain too much about this one) better communications for Police, Fire and the like.
But this all means that 70,000,000 TV sets in this country will become boat anchors. That's where our
wonderful elected officials step in. They've set aside $1.5 billion dollars to provide vouchers for people who own those 70,000,000 TV sets to buy a digital converter so that they can view the new digital TV shows. As the article points out, this is the same elected officials who are cutting back on food stamps and other support programs.
This reminds me of nothing so much as the Roman Senate sponsoring games in the Coliseum to keep the people happy while they systematically ran Rome into the ground. The economy is a mess, but you can watch all the TV you could ever want in stunning digital clarity that's degraded to the same old TV you've always watched through a digital converter that is almost guaranteed to cost more than the vouchers you might get. Welcome to Pax Americana.
FORTUNE: Congress botched digital TV - Jan. 4, 2006
