Most Americans are by now aware that standard over-the-air TV signals will be switched to digital starting February 17, 2009. People must switch to digital conversion boxes to receive channels on their old TVs over a standard antenna, boxes the government subsidizes the majority of for people who request a voucher. Anyways, officials concluded this change will affect 17 million US households and in an effort to inform these families of the change, the government has set aside $1.5 billion for the campaign. Sadly, this trumps the government’s budget of $574.6 million for programs aimed at adult basic and literacy education. What does this mean? Well, the government thinks TV is more important than being able to read. That’s nice.

The switch to digital television is happening because digital TV not only gives a better, clearer channel but also allows networks to broadcast more than one channel over the same frequency. As users of digital over-the-air programming, we must admit it really is quite of an improvement. We’re all for making the switch and informing people of the change but honestly, is it really necessary to spend $1.5 billion on the advertising campaign? We understand a lot of families out there are going to be affected but given the power of word of mouth and the fact that this affects everyone, those affected will find out about it sooner or later. We don’t understand why so much money is allocated towards this when it can be used towards other more important programs.

Also, given the fact that 98.2% of US households have televisions you’d think people will find out about it sooner or later. What surprises us is how more households have TVs than US adults have basic adult literacy skills (86% as of 2003). We’re not trying to hate on the government but we find it ridiculous that so much money is being wasted on informing people of the change when networks are directly affected by it. If these people can’t access regularly scheduled TV then the networks’ ratings will plummet causing them to lose money. Informing people of the switch to digital should be partially the responsibility of networks since they have quite a bit on the line. What do you guys think?

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[Go here for more information on the transition and to apply for a coupon]

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