By Fawn Johnson
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- A member of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team on Tuesday reiterated the next administration's call to delay the Feb. 17 date when all TV stations must begin broadcasting solely in digital format.
Democrats are mulling legislation to put off the date, but some Republicans are protesting the idea.
Tom Wheeler, who heads the Obama-Biden Transition Team's working group on technology and science, said the digital shift should be moved back because the country isn't prepared.
Speaking on C-Span's Q&A program, Wheeler said, "The Congress passed the law saying we would go to digital television and cut all analog signals in 2005, and in the intervening three-plus years, the groundwork hasn't been laid."
The biggest problem, according to Wheeler, is the lack of coupons available for people trying to defray the cost of a digital converter box for their old analog TVs. "There has been so much demand for that, in part because of the economy and in part because of underestimation (in requests), that it has gone broke," he said.
Wheeler said he recommended to John Podesta, the co-chair of Obama's transition team, that the digital TV date be postponed. Podesta sent a letter to Capitol Hill last week requesting a later date.
Wheeler made his comments before a live audience of students. The full program will air Sunday evening.
Without congressional action, all TV stations must stop broadcasting in analog format on Feb. 17, which means that people who rely on over-the-air TV broadcasting won't see the programs unless they buy a digital television or converter box or subscribe to a cable or satellite TV service.
The Commerce Department announced earlier in the month that it would have to place applicants for $40 converter box coupons on a waiting list because it had sent enough coupons to obligate the $1.34 billion allotted for them.
Democrats on Capitol Hill want to put more money into the coupon program and are talking about legislation to move back the transition date, according to a House aide.
But that proposal will meet with opposition from Republicans. House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Republican Joe Barton of Texas, along with more than a dozen other Republicans on the committee are expected to send a letter to Obama Wednesday saying the Feb. 17 date should remain intact.
"We believe that panicky talk of a delay is breeding stultifying uncertainty, and that an actual delay would be a monumental error in judgment that would damage the program and the public," Barton's letter says.
-By Fawn Johnson, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9263; fawn.johnson@dowjones.com
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Publié le 13 janvier 2009 Copyright © 2009 Dowjones