Friday's Rant: Digital TV
Folks, it's starting to get serious. Seriously. No fooling around. We're now less that forty days away from the United States of America's official conversion to digital television. Are you prepared? Are you scared? Do you have a CLUE what's about to happen?
I have a fairly thick skin. But over the past year, every other commercial, after nearly every newscast, on billboards across the country and on nearly every kind of media, we've been hearing about how our nation will be switching to digital broadcasts on TV on February 17, 2009. Does anybody NOT know this?
Now I'm sure that come February 17, there will be 198 million old ladies who wake-up, try and flip on "The Price is Right," scratch their head and wonder why they don't have any TV. They'll then proceed to call their Senator, Mayor or Barack Obama and go off on why they don't know why they don't have any TV and ask what they're going to do about it. Typical.
As annoying as all that is, this is not the point of this rant. The thing that annoys me the most about all of this is the $40 "coupons" that have been available to everybody in this country. You see, people shouldn't have to pay for their TV, taxpayers should - like everything else. But the kicker is, the federal government has now ran out of money to support this program. How much have they spent? $1.3 BILLION. That's billion...with a 'B'.
I realize that I'm probably the only person who thinks this, but I don't think that I - or any taxpayer - should have to pay billions of dollars to buy digital convertor boxes for other peoples' TVs. If you can't pay $40 to buy your OWN converter box...tough. Too bad. Read a book.
What's more, when the conversion does take place, it's going to be a nightmare. There are an estimate 70 million TVs that currently rely on analog antennas to receive a signal. Wilmington, NC (population 95,000) - a test market - has already made the switch...and the FCC received over 1,800 complaints in the first five days. By that percentage, when the switch goes national, the FCC can expect nearly 6 million complaints - in the first week. That'll be fun.
Friends and neigbors, here's the point. Government does very few things well. We have a good military that does a great job blowing things up. That's about it. Mostly, it just screws things up, screws things up worse, creates new problems. This is just a tiny little example...with $1.3 billion the government couldn't effectively give away $40 coupons and run a PSA campaign. I work in marketing - do you know what we could do with a $1.3 billion budget?
And these are the people we're relying on to bail-us-out, fiscally stimulate us and rescue us from these troubled times? Good grief. Wake-up, people.
Breathe in, breathe out...this week's rant is over.
I have a fairly thick skin. But over the past year, every other commercial, after nearly every newscast, on billboards across the country and on nearly every kind of media, we've been hearing about how our nation will be switching to digital broadcasts on TV on February 17, 2009. Does anybody NOT know this?
Now I'm sure that come February 17, there will be 198 million old ladies who wake-up, try and flip on "The Price is Right," scratch their head and wonder why they don't have any TV. They'll then proceed to call their Senator, Mayor or Barack Obama and go off on why they don't know why they don't have any TV and ask what they're going to do about it. Typical.
As annoying as all that is, this is not the point of this rant. The thing that annoys me the most about all of this is the $40 "coupons" that have been available to everybody in this country. You see, people shouldn't have to pay for their TV, taxpayers should - like everything else. But the kicker is, the federal government has now ran out of money to support this program. How much have they spent? $1.3 BILLION. That's billion...with a 'B'.
I realize that I'm probably the only person who thinks this, but I don't think that I - or any taxpayer - should have to pay billions of dollars to buy digital convertor boxes for other peoples' TVs. If you can't pay $40 to buy your OWN converter box...tough. Too bad. Read a book.
What's more, when the conversion does take place, it's going to be a nightmare. There are an estimate 70 million TVs that currently rely on analog antennas to receive a signal. Wilmington, NC (population 95,000) - a test market - has already made the switch...and the FCC received over 1,800 complaints in the first five days. By that percentage, when the switch goes national, the FCC can expect nearly 6 million complaints - in the first week. That'll be fun.
Friends and neigbors, here's the point. Government does very few things well. We have a good military that does a great job blowing things up. That's about it. Mostly, it just screws things up, screws things up worse, creates new problems. This is just a tiny little example...with $1.3 billion the government couldn't effectively give away $40 coupons and run a PSA campaign. I work in marketing - do you know what we could do with a $1.3 billion budget?
And these are the people we're relying on to bail-us-out, fiscally stimulate us and rescue us from these troubled times? Good grief. Wake-up, people.
Breathe in, breathe out...this week's rant is over.
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