NTIA Will Not Seek Additional DTV Coupon Money

National Telecommunications and Information Administration chief Meredith Attwell Baker has told House Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) that its $1.5 billion budget for distributing digital-TV-to-analog converter-box coupons should be sufficient. She added that NTIA already took into account sending out more than the 33.5 million coupons budgeted for. In fact, given the rate at which the coupons are going unredeemed -- more than 50% -- NTIA should be able to have funding for 50 million coupons. The NTIA told IBM to get ready to send out another 6 million coupons above the 33.5 million it estimated it would be able to send out giving the funding. But Baker told Dingell that had only been an estimate and that the NTIA all along took into account that depending on the nonredemption rate, it might be able to fund more coupons. More than 21.3 million coupons have been requested and more than 6.6 million coupons have been redeemed. For all households, the coupon redemption rate is 45.8 percent and for households that rely on an antenna, the coupon redemption rate is 54.6 percent. Visit www.ntiadtv.gov/coupon_stats.cfm for redemption rate details.