DTV Mission: No Consumer Left behind

DTV MISSION: NO CONSUMER LEFT BEHIND
[SOURCE: tvnewsday]
The National Association of Broadcasters' new VP talks about his upcoming campaign to make sure that the millions of homes that receive off-the-air TV today will still be able to receive off-the-air TV after the February 2009 switch to digital. One of the biggest advantages broadcasting has over cable and satellite in delivering TV is its ubiquity—it’s everywhere. By the NAB’s reckoning, 34.3 million or 31% of the 111.3 million TV households have one or more TV sets that still get their signals off air. And of those 34.3 million, 19.6 million—more than half—rely solely on broadcasting. They don't have any sets hooked to satellite or cable. This is not an advantage that broadcasters intend to lose when they make the government-mandated switch from analog to digital broadcasting on Feb. 18, 2009. Consequently, the NAB is launching a public education campaign to make sure that every consumer knows about the transition so they can buy new digital TV sets or, with the help of a government subsidy, buy A-to-D converter boxes that will enable analog TV sets to go right on receiving signals off the air after the switch to digital. Leading the campaign for NAB will be the newly hired Jonathan Collegio, who learned the business of getting people to understand and act in the do-or-die world of political campaigning.
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2007/02/01/daily.3/