NTIA, Federal Partners to Hold Converter-Box-Coupon Powwow

NTIA, FEDERAL PARTNERS TO HOLD CONVERTER-BOX-COUPON POWWOW
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The National Telecommunications & Information Administration will get together with its federal partners in the digital-TV-to-analog converter-box-coupon program for a Jan. 24 meeting at the U.S. Department of Commerce. The hour-and-a-half meeting will come some three weeks after viewers can begin applying for the coupons. It also comes after criticisms in a much-touted Government Accountability Office study saying that there was not sufficient coordination or any single coordinating entity for the transition and the DTV-education campaign. According to an NTIA source, the meeting is meant to provide more than one-dozen federal agencies -- including the NTIA's principal partner, the Federal Communications Commission -- with a preview of the converter-box-program promotional materials available to them, as well as providing an opportunity to share its timeline of planned activities, which include a Feb. 17 kickoff for the issuing of the coupons, as well as getting feedback from them on how the NTIA could "leverage existing communications vehicles to reach our target populations," which include the rural, poor, elderly, physically challenged and minority populations.
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