The Digital Television (DTV) Scam and Truth About Switching in February 2009
Has anyone else had enough of all the stupid Digital Television stuff being advertised? From the federal government advertising the switch from analog to digital, to the infomercial style 3rd party commercials and news media portraying the DTV switch as being the upcoming apocalypse. For those of you who aren’t from the states, or are unfamiliar with this issue, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has mandated that all stations begin broadcasting using a digital frequency (instead of analogue) effective this coming February.
Most of the propaganda makes it seem like on a certain day in February in 2009, your TV will cease to function. Well I have news for you, in most cases it doesn’t mean anything. That’s right, it’s all a bunch of wasted energy, unless of course you actually watch broadcast television – no cable, no satellite.
I for one don’t know a single person who falls into that category. I’m sure that if I did, they would have already heard enough about it and taken the proper precautions illustrated in the hilarious video below:
The most ironic thing, is that I have seen a plethora of infomercials, advertisements, and other marketing implements warning poor innocent Americans about the upcoming switch to digital on cable only stations, which means one of two things: either the guys buying ad space in marketing should be fired, or the company is trying to exploit people who don’t understand technology…
Jason
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hahaha. Thanks for that clip. “Will any of this bring Jack Benny back?”
I have Directv and I do have to say that they have been good about telling people that they don’t have to do anything.
I read that 15% of tv viewers (~14 million people) still use broadcast antennas/antennae. I know one person. Yet people have requested 44 million coupons for boxes and about 18 million of them have been claimed. The government allocated $1.3 billion to pay for the wave of converter boxes and may be asking for $330 million more to keep up the program.
Cluster…fuck
Jim
Jim’s last blog post..What’s In The Box?!?!? Se7en Things You Didn’t Know About Me.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:09 pm -
This is a totally bogus ploy… Jim’s stats boggle my mind. You think they would have waited until after a census year to do this? Nope, let’s throw money at an issue so people can watch more bullshit commercials in digital format!!!
-Nick
Nicholas Alexander’s last blog post..The Digital Television (DTV) Scam and Truth About Switching in February 2009
January 3rd, 2009 at 1:28 am -
Call me crazy, but I think this DTV thing is a camera so the government can watch your every move.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:48 pm -
Jim-
Those statistics are astounding! (Although I had a feeling that was happening…so much hooplah over nothing)
Nicholas-
I agree, at least they could have been scientific about it, or sent out intelligible information explaining the switch – why it’s happening, who actually needs a box, etc.
Taylor-
It probably is…just like Firby!
Welcome to LTMB and thanks for the comment, hopefully it will be the first of many! Also if you’re interested in doing some of your own bitching, you can find more information here.January 7th, 2009 at 3:56 pm -
[...] Latin American immigrants. Nonetheless, there must be people who either don’t watch enough TV or spend too much time smoking something illegal that still can’t spot the [...]
January 11th, 2009 at 9:21 pm -
Well there are still ppl who watch broadcast – believe it or not- but everyone seems to understand what’s going on. It’s just one more technological evolutionary jump and there will be plenty more coming if we just live a bit longer.
January 13th, 2009 at 4:50 pm -
If you ask me, I think it is all a load of crap that was fed to the masses so that the wealthy could steal more of our money through the unnecessary purchase of new TV’s and other unneeded items. Look at who REALLY benefits from this. Mainly the government for selling frequency to the cellphone companies, and the cellphone companies themselves, who have been know as money grubbing thieves for some time now. Then we can discuss the electronics industries gaining off of this…
June 6th, 2009 at 11:17 am -
the change to digital is to install cameras and microphones in your living room and bedrooms so the new world order can see and hear everything you say and do. so much for land of the free.
June 6th, 2009 at 7:16 pm -
I used to have cable but cancelled it months ago since i would get sucked in and wouldnt do my course work. I have no clue why I did it but I just went to walmart to get the stupid dtv box thinking that boom i could have some TV channels, boy i was wrong, guess what? you STILL have to use “rabbits ears” with the dtv box. wtf correct me if im wrong but i thought this was to replace those??????? What a effing waste of government money.
June 10th, 2009 at 9:24 pm -
Well where do I begin on this one, Who profits from all this, The Federal Gov from auctioning off the former UHF tv band 700 to 800 MHz, they actioned off 800 to 900 a long time ago that became the first cell phone band,the future of the VHF Low band (channels 2-6 or 54 to 88 MHz)has not as yet been announced (you know it will be the auction block) then of course electronics manufacturers, tv’s, converter boxes, antennas, and I suppose there will be millions of analog only tv’s to recycle. Certainly broadcasters have nothing to gain in all this, they will have to bare the cost of changing all thier transmission equipment, this alone has got to be in the millions of dollars per tv station. Secondly most broadcasters will realise a smaller broadcast footprint then the analog days because the FCC has underestimated the amount of RF power will be needed to reach the same coverage area. There are multple reasons for this that have not been as much as mentioned in all the disinformation that has been shoved down our throats so far. Unlike the author of this article millions of people like myself still rely on FREE broadcast tv. For those that PAY for tv, like the author the main advantage is the number of channels they receive, most of them not available on broadcast tv, because it certainly is not because of the high quality service the get from thier providers (what a joke)especialy cable providers who have been foisting low quality signals down thier leaky networks directly to the homes of millions for years and years. I have antenna tv because I live in an area that does not have cable available (my town has cable but has not made it mandatory to provide service to the whole town so the cable company only wired the main population areas) next would be fiber optic service, also not available in my area, then there is sattelite tv, that is an option for me, also what most of my neihbors have. kind of pricey for tv if you ask me and also means I would have to cut down a bunch of trees that currently offer me privacy. Many people who live within 35 or 40 miles of thier local broadcasters would be amazed to find out how many tv channels they can receive with a very simple antenna system, but they have also never had anything but PAY tv in thier life and would suffer serious withdrawal from PAY channels (HBO,Cinemax,CNN, History Ch Etc.) I live around 60 miles from most of the broadcasters and use a large high gain VHF/UHF antenna with a preamplifier and antenna rotator and then a distribution amplifier in the basement. This has provided me with an acceptable number of broadcast channels for years, now after the big switch I receive less than half of the channels I enjoyed in analog. The FCC has Screwed up big on this one, and I expect they A) will not admit it B) will claim it has been for the greater good. Rural America is taking it on the chin on this one and nothing is going to be done about it. This in the end should help kill off FREE tv forever because only people that live closer to metro regions will be able to receive it and have already been using PAY service for years. I could go on longer but that’s enough.
July 10th, 2009 at 7:11 am
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