Millions of Senior Citizens May Find Themselves
Without TV Signal on February 17
Congress trying to delay mandated change to digital
broadcast, fund more help with converters
Feb. 9, 2009 – Some U.S. television stations may
switch their broadcast signal to digital on February 17, although the
Congress has passed legislation to delay the mandated change-over to
June 12. Current estimates are this will leave millions of senior
citizens with out a television signal. President Obama is expected to
sign the bill soon and the stimulus legislation is expected to fund more
coupons for buying discounted converters.
Of the 21 million Americans who are estimated to
rely solely on over-the-air broadcasts, forty percent of them are
seniors.
According to the government’s website on the
transition –
http://www.dtv.gov - on Feb. 17, some full-power broadcast
television stations may decide to stop broadcasting on analog airwaves, although
it may not be mandated by the government. The remaining stations may stop
broadcasting analog sometime between March 14 and the final deadline on
June 12.
Find out
more about the transition date change.
Go now.
Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI), Chairman of the Senate
Special Committee on Aging, hailed Congressional passage of the bill to
delay the nationwide transition to digital television by four months.
President Barack Obama is expected to sign the
bill, according to Kohl’s office.
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What Does This Mean For Me?
If you have one or more analog televisions that receive free
over-the-air TV programming with an outdoor antenna or “rabbit
ears” on the TV, you will need to be prepared. You have three
options: 1) purchase and connect a “digital-to-analog converter
box” to your analog TV; 2) purchase a digital television (a TV
with a built-in digital tuner); or 3) subscribe to a paid
service such as cable or satellite TV. Each U.S. household is
eligible to receive two $40 coupons to be used toward the
purchase of two digital-to-analog converter boxes.
Even though the DTV transition deadline has been pushed back,
your local broadcast stations may complete the transition before
June 12th. Broadcast stations are required to notify their
viewers before shutting off their analog channels. If you are
not yet prepared for the DTV transition, it’s important to
prepare. It’s also important to watch your local broadcast
channels for on-air announcements or you may contact them
directly for more information. |
Kohl cosponsored the legislation, which also allows
the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) to
issue up to one replacement converter box coupon per household for
coupons that have expired without being redeemed.
This provision will go into effect when additional
funds are appropriated to the coupon program. Currently, both the
Senate and House stimulus packages include $650 million for additional
coupons, as well as
Chairman Kohl has called on NTIA repeatedly to
allow consumers with expired converter box coupons to reapply so that
their coupons may be reissued.
In June 2008,
Kohl sent a letter along with 17 Congressional colleagues urging
NTIA to address the issue, and echoed his concerns when the
U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in September
that areas with predominately senior populations have allowed 43 percent
of their converter box coupons to expire.
At that time, Kohl also called on NTIA to comply
with GAO’s recommendation to develop a plan to manage volatility in
coupon requests leading up to the transition, expressing concern that
NTIA had no specific plans to address an increase in the demand for
converter box coupons.
Earlier this month, Chairman Kohl sent letters to
then-Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, Chairman of the Senate
Commerce Committee John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), and Chairman of the
Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related
Agencies Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), urging them to address the shortfall
in funding for the NTIA converter box coupon program.
According to NTIA, over two million households are
on the coupon waiting list. Of these, Neilsen data reports that nearly
half are not DTV ready.
Kohl sits on the Appropriations Subcommittee on
Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies and wholeheartedly
supports the DTV funding included in the stimulus.
In September 2007, the Aging Committee held a
hearing entitled “Preparing
for the Digital Television Transition: Will Seniors Be Left in the Dark?”
Testimony from Federal Communications Commissioner
John Adelstein and Mark Goldstein, Director of Physical Infrastructure
Issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), corroborated
the results of an Aging Committee investigation that found that, at the
time, the federal government was drastically unprepared to educate
America’s seniors about the February 2009 transition.
The hearing uncovered several concerns, including
the lack of coordination between government agencies; an over reliance
on competing private sector efforts; the potential for fraud, abuse, and
confusion with respect to the government’s coupon-program; and finally,
that non-profit organizations require additional resources to
sufficiently assist seniors with navigating the transition.
Following the hearing, Chairman Kohl helped convene
the Keeping Seniors Connected Coalition, consisting of organizations
advocating on behalf of older Americans and other vulnerable
populations.
Kohl led the Coalition in a push to obtain federal
funding for those community outreach groups on the frontlines of the DTV
transition. The coalition determined that seniors would need targeted
education, assistance in navigating the federal government’s converter
box coupon program, and one-on-one support for converter box
installation. The funds awarded today could be used by n4a for these
purposes.
In November 2008, Sen. Kohl hailed NTIA’s
announcement of an award in the amount of $2.7 million to the National
Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a) to help seniors transition
to digital television.
A year prior, Kohl had introduced the Preparing
America’s Seniors for the Digital Television Transition Act of 2007,
which in part would have established a grant program to support
non-profits and state and local government agencies, such as area
agencies on aging, in their efforts to help seniors and other vulnerable
populations navigate the transition and the converter box coupon
program. Similar legislative language was included as an amendment to
S. 2607, the DTV Transition Assistance Act.
