House defeats digital TV delay bill
The House of Representatives defeated the digital TV delay bill with a 258-168 vote that failed to secure the two thirds needed for passage. The vote closely followed party lines with 155 Republicans voting against the bill and 22 Republicans voting for it. Amongst House Democrats, 236 voted for the bill and a mere 13 voted against it. The defeat signaled a win for House republicans who have opposed the delay, claiming the four month delay would further confuse consumers, cause an unnecessary delay for companies and public safety agencies waiting for the spectrum to be released and burden TV companies with the additional cost of broadcasting both analog and digital signals during the four month delay. The defeat is a setback for the Obama administration and congressional democrats who believe that the current resources to assist people in the digital TV transition are in a state of disarray and are concerned that the public, particularly poor, rural and low-income Americans, will not be adequately prepared when the analog air waves are turned off on February 17th. The Obama administration and congressional democrats still claim to be exploring all options to secure another vote on this issue.
4g
finally they did something right… im a democrat but this is just stupid… all it would do is confuse the people who prepared themselves and cost more money.
Whatever Obama tries to do good for the country. This will happen the country itself would shoot itself on the foot before seing Obama give fast results. In another words just because his black they will do the best posible to stall him that way he looks bad!!
One man sayed well he gonna fix the country it will just take him twice as long or more to do so than McCain would of.
I think that it could be president yakamura, garcia,stockovitch you know whatever it is dosent have to be always a white man what he needs to have is BRAINS!
McCain is no good with out BRAINS but sure his ass is white.
I agree that any delay would confuse a lot of people. But no matter what, some people are going to be lost on whatever day they switch over to all ditigal
The people who aren’t prepared for it probably don’t watch all that much TV anyway… I think they will get the point when they see the fuzz
dang .. they should just give it up already .. this is a pathetic attempt by Obama to win the hearts of “poor, rural and low-income” Americans who should gosh darn know better than to delay if they want to keep their TVs working
LOL@ Steven’s comment … unfortunately, that’s the only way to get the message across … they will surely make the change when it gets cut off …
I think if they aren’t ready in a week or two they are ready in 4 months.
Some people just don’t care.
Wow, “they AREN’T ready in the months.”
That’s what I meant.
The problem as usual is the lazy people who want to sit on their ass and leave everything up to the Government to hold their hand and make it right.
Even if you aren’t the most tech savvy person this has been in the news in some form for the better part of three years, topped off by the HARD marketing push by every local TV station and company that carries the converter boxes the last 6-8 months and there is no reason there are 6 million+ people who aren’t ready.
I do understand that there is a problem with the funding for the cards for $40 off, but ya know what? Deal with it, that’s what you get for waiting too long. People knew years ago about this and chose to wait, now they want to cry foul because the billions of dollars that was there for the taking all along has dried up. No sympathy from me.
Enough already! These people have had approximately 10 years to prepare for this transition. Another 4 months to do what should have been done a decade ago? No more unnecessary delays, please.
People watch too much tv as it is. Isn’t it a good thing if some people have to get their asses out of the sofa and start doing something useful instead? All a delay would do is to sabotage the plans for LTE launched by AT&T and Verizon Wireless. We want 40 meg/second in the air, not more stupid daytime television for people who sit in sofas with beer cans.
@MIKE
DITTO, DITTO, DITTO….COULDN’T AGREE MORE.
Good. I understand the intentions behind the proposed delay and they were good but in reality this will be much more likely to get the remaining stragglers taken care of. Otherwise some would have dragged their feet forever.
In a way I think this may have just been good political theater. When people bitch, the administration can say “hey, we tried but were defeated”. I wonder if they planned for this to die.
@Anton Wahlman who said: “We want 40 meg/second in the air, not more stupid daytime television for people who sit in sofas with beer cans.”
HEY! MLB players have rights too, ya know!
The “other side” to this – the gum-ment needs the billions that ATTWS and VZW already committed to getting those airwaves dedicated to our future high-speed wireless data fix.
Hurry frickin up, already!
Whether the analog TV cut off happens in February or June there will be people “still not ready” If they push it back, people will just sit and wait AGAIN!!!! Shut it off and that will speed them up! I still remember when VZW turned off their analog service. They sent free phones to analog customers and there were some that still claimed they weren’t ready. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink!
Yaaay! Was stupid that they were delaying it for such a small number of people.
LTE > daytime TV. Just sayin’.
“Whatever Obama tries to do good for the country. This will happen the country itself would shoot itself on the foot before seing Obama give fast results. In another words just because his black they will do the best posible to stall him that way he looks bad!!
One man sayed well he gonna fix the country it will just take him twice as long or more to do so than McCain would of.
I think that it could be president yakamura, garcia,stockovitch you know whatever it is dosent have to be always a white man what he needs to have is BRAINS!
McCain is no good with out BRAINS but sure his ass is white.”
Brains ehh? Hmm…
On another note, GOOD that this will go through as planned. This government forced conversion was a stupid thing to begin with made even more absurd by forcing these companies to maintain BOTH systems for X amount of time more because Joe stupid didn’t bother to get his government subsidy and/or pay the $30 to get the converter…You know what I say? Let their TV’s go dark, as soon as that happens the majority of those people will go get a converter to resolve the problem and those that don’t probably just don’t care if they have TV or not.
man thank god this got defeated. i work for a dish network retailer and half of the marketing i work on for the last month was for this. ty house of reps
Any technological progress is good. If the Govt didn’t force it, we’d still be watching 480i!
Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: Philadelphia PA, 19103
Wow, I’m glad they defeated this ridiculous delay.
I just wrote my representative telling him how thankful I was that he voted against it!
I love the part where a Digital Converter Box has $15 worth of parts and would usually be sold for $20, but since there are $40 cards out there, they charge $40+$20=$60. Nice.
Rural? Everyone I know that lives in the country has Satellite. Poor? Every person I know on Welfare, has Seven jeans, cable, and their nails did. Give me a break.
As for the transition, if they did anything, I think they should STOP broadcasting analog shows and replace them with a scroll that says something like, “Your TV is NOT broken! Go to your local electronics store and ask for a converter! Go to http://www.dtv2009.gov!!!” Run those for about a month or two.
Think again:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/29/AR2009012904496.html
^It’s now been made clear that House Republican leadership, _alone_, is choosing this issue to be obstructionist. That is the truly sad truth about Delay’s legacy. He may be gone, but his disciples remain.