Billion Dollar Handout To Upgrade TVs 663
db32 writes "SFGate has the story of the cutoff date for those rabbit ear antennas that some of us grew up with (Feb. 19, 2009). Now while the story of analog vs. digital TV has been beaten to death, still I think there is something more here. 'The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration... said it is setting aside $990 million to pay for the boxes. Each home can request up to two $40 coupons for a digital-to-analog converter box, which consumer electronics makers such as RCA and LG plan to produce.' Beyond my disdain for most TV to begin with, I am blown away that with all of our current problems — homelessness and crime on the home front, war fighting and terrorism abroad — our government is seriously going to spend this much money on upgrading peoples' televisions."
important (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know why you are surprised.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell them they are happy.
Medicate them.
Tell them that the Government is protecting them.
Medicate them.
Provide an conduit for masses to not _need_ to think about day-to-day life.
Encourage them to medicate themselves.
Result; they will think that they are happy.
This may be redundant, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
If I had a nickel for every time some idiot said the government should cut program X and give the money to program Y, however benevolent that might seem, I'd have enough to lobby congress to give me one bajillionth the money spent on lobbying and bridges to nowhere.
You know what, if it matters that much, put your money where your talking out of, cancel your TV and internet subscriptions, and go help a food kitchen or homeless shelter. Do you know how much they could do with the price of your broadband and entertainment budgets?
(Now, if you think that it's a stupid idea to cut off your internet access and fun to help someone, since you already give things away, stick a sock in your hypocritical nonsense. On the other hand, run for congress and fix it yourself!)
Television, much like religion... (Score:1, Insightful)
Good Investment (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine the chaos when people have to access "news" from various/conflicting sources, and start coming up with their own minds.
Re:I'm blown away with (Score:1, Insightful)
Flawed perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
This argument can be used to make almost any expenditure look silly. I can't believe, with all of the homelessness, that our government is [sponsoring arts programs | paying for students to take field trips | building monuments to fallen soldiers | repaving roads |
Just because you have certain problems, doesn't mean that you do without anything else, until those problems are solved.
Then again, I can't believe that you bought yourself a television, when you could have donated your money to fight homelessness, etc...
Imagine they were locking you out of the Internet (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyway, what we are apparantly really paying for is better communications for public safety responders.
It's not misuse, it's responsible (Score:3, Insightful)
So, because of their doing, they are taking a little responsibility and offering people a more painless way to make the switch. Whether or not $40 is going to be enough, remains to be seen (they might sell the boxes for $300, who knows.)
I don't think it's a waste of money. I think things like.. ohh, you know, going on this Iraq war was a ridiculous misuse of funds. And the numbers are absolutely staggering for that. This is a drop in the bucket.
How about the other direction... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is opposite of:
Demagoguery works both ways...
As one who worked on digital tv (Score:4, Insightful)
I can tell you the reason why the industry needs a subsidy:
No one wants to pay for DRM.
The market hasn't failed. Rather, the content companies have begun to realize that people don't want to pay more to get less.
I mean, why would I buy a tv with fewer features?
The content companies have begun to realize that they need to provide some kind of short-term incentive to get the customer to give up the rights to which they have become accustomed. Once the first generation grows up without the ability to record tv, they'll think it's normal. And the worst of it is that it isn't the content companies paying the bill, but the American taxpayer!
With DTV, the public domain goes away. DRM isn't there to prevent some content from being rebroadcast; it is there to keep all content away from the net. Even things legally in the public domain.
Call your Senator and tell him to oppose this bill. Tell him you don't want Congress wasting money...
Re:What is more useless than Television? (Score:3, Insightful)
I rarely approve of government spending... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Romans summed it up best, IMHO: (Score:5, Insightful)
So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bread an Circuses (Score:5, Insightful)
If you deny the peasants their bread and circuses [wikipedia.org], they might just up and start paying attention to the world around them, and realize that their government is whittling away their freedoms one by one.
By the way, the plan to allocate these funds was announced back when the FCC announced plans to force migration to digital -- years ago.
Re:I don't know why you are surprised.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Let them be happy, then. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a valid use for the money (Score:2, Insightful)
2. Luxuries are important in modern society.
3. It would be unfair on poor families to suddenly take away their TV service rather than take measures to rectify the situation.
4. This only amounts to about $3.30 per US citizen.
5. The money spent on this is not being taken out of crime prevention, housing, the military or anti-terrorism efforts. If they did not do this, we'd only see a tiny tax break.
Seriously. It just doesn't work like that. The US is the richest nation in the world. If the government believed that the problems mentioned could be solved by throwing a couple of billion dollars at them then they would. Lack of television reception is a problem that can be solved by throwing a billion dollars at it.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not "just fucking television." It's a MASSIVE consumer market. The government would do this as much for the consumer as for the industry that doesn't want a good fraction of their viewer base cut off. The government makes a lot of tax money from TV businesses.. or did you think it was all Wayne's World?
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
It really only affects you, though, if you still watch broadcast TV...since most people have cable or satellite, it's not really *that* big a problem, is it?
Why bother to have more than one priority? (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, I do think this is an example of wasteful government largesse. But I really hate the given justification.
How about, "Innocent people continue to be raped and murdered on their way home at night. And yet, the government continues to spend money on post office boxes. Is your child's life worth less than a post office box?"
The notion that because something is very important that it therefore innately subsumes all lesser priorities is not consistent with any form of logical cost benefit analysis. Rarely if ever is there a linear relation to investment and payoff in terms of moneys allocated to resolving social issues, and the sort of qualitative analysis you mentally apply to "homelessness" vs. "television" is an irrational and inappropriate way to compare what is actually a quantitative analysis of "unit payoff per unit investment to resolve homeless" and the corresponding.
Anyway, I think a better question than "how can the government waste money on instead of ?" might be "why do I trust the government to be responsible for these monies in the first place?" It's pretty much a given that, whatever Uncle Sam does 'for our own good' with our own money, ninety percent of us are going to pissed about it.
article's fundamentally flawed assertion (Score:2, Insightful)
No Surprise (Score:1, Insightful)
Why? Unlike the problems you mentioned above, millions of Americans waking up one day to find that their televisions no longer work really could cause substantial civil unrest.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I have the means to buy a digital TV, I am not about to say that it is fair we cut people who don't have the means off. I would call it a problem, and big or small this should be solved.
RonB
yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kill your TV! (Score:2, Insightful)
IMO, this makes the government ethically liable to pay for adapters. Yes, I know that it's myself and other US taxpayers who are actually paying for it, and I think that sucks, but the point at which to stop that suckage is long past: when HDTV was mandated. Now we just have to clean up the mess.
I firmly believe that the free market should have been allowed to decide when SDTV went away. Big government strikes again.
Re:Yeah, this is chump change... (Score:5, Insightful)
Its far more than capitalism, this is what drives evolution. Why on earth do Peacocks have such rediculous plumage? Is doesn't improve their ability to survive, and certainly other species can find mates w/o such massive shows. Man has been collecting worthless crap since we walked erect, seashells, pretty rocks, shiny baubles. Even the most primative tribes put on feasts to show their wealth to other tribes. It's what drives evolution.
If noone bought things they didn't need, we'd eliminate all jobs but agriculture and medicine with a 90+% unemplyment rate.
Get rid of manufacturing jobs and we'll all be working the fields, just like ancient Sumeria. There wil be no doctors because they be too busy growing their own food. You need tractors, irrigation, distribution networks, etc. so the 1% of farmers can grow enough food for the rest of us. Those in turn need energy, miners, etc for resources. The fact that a reasonably educated westerner can't figure out the resource allocation to accomplish the basic goal of feeding 600 million Americans is why Communism fails, and why government screws things up.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Digital stations don't yet have the coverage of their analog cousins either - same station but different signal and different coverage area. That's common through much of this, mostly rural, country.
Not Entirely Irrational (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The FCC controls airwave licenses.
2. A significant number of people out there do not have the means, or rightfully refuse to upgrade to a television capable of decoding over the air digital signals.
3. A significant number of people out there do not have the mans, or rightfully refuse to purchase cable and/or satellite service, yet they continue to watch TV via over the air signals.
4. Eliminating analog over the air signals will open up gobs of frequencies for other uses; including 2-way communications, IP communications, and more digital channels, both TV and radio.
5. Finally, $990 million is _nothing_ compared to how much auctioning off the new spectrum will generate in revenue for the FCC. The last auction generated something like $40 billion; $990 million in order to generate good will among the populace, and ensure that the working class (working poor) does not get cut off from their TV, is a win-win.
If the government didn't have a plan like this, most likely the analog over-the-air signals would end up continuing. This is a *bad* thing, as that spectrum is very valuable, and being used inefficiently.
Is this government intervention? Yes, of course it is. Unfortunately, this is a situation that libertarian's like myself have to learn to handle delicately, because it involves an actual *public* good, that being frequency spectrum.
Re:Makes perfect sense (Score:3, Insightful)
Hence, the us.gov is constitutionally required to do something like this as "just compensation".
Propaganda Outlet (Score:2, Insightful)
And computers... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bread an Circuses (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Makes perfect sense (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, if enough people don't replace their receivers, some broadcasters may fight too keep the analog transmitters going because they don't want to loose the customer base which still receives OTA analog broadcasts, which is something like 15% of television viewers. Other broadcasters will probably be fine with abandoning their old analog equipment.
Why is it the government's job to make sure people can still watch TV when the television converts to a new standard, but it wasn't the government's job to buy a new CD player for everybody when the CD took over from Vinyl records?
That's not a good analogy. With the DTV switchover, the Government is asking people to spend money in order to receive the same level of service. Sure, it has more pixels, but it's still just television.
* The CD wasn't mandated by the government, Digital Television is.
* I can still buy and play Vinyl records on my existing system without spending any money. After the DTV switchover, OTA TV consumers will need to spend money and buy a converter or a new television. There are few choices for a DTV converter, and most of them are not cheap. Rabbit ears probably aren't powerful enough to pull in a clean DTV signal, so many OTA consumers will also need to buy a better quality antenna.
* CDs can coexist with vinyl records. The Analog TV spectrum can't exist with the dozens of technologies which will eventually use the spectrum.
$1bn in foreign aid (Score:4, Insightful)
Chip H.
Re:I rarely approve of government spending... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why should I replace it? It does everything I want it to do. Perfectly. I paid $250 in 1992. That's *still* a bit higher than I really care to pay for TV. And there are not TVs available for that price now. I *certainly* have no interest in paying $1000+ for any TV ever made.
The *say* they are reclaiming that spectrum to give it to safety functions, etc. What do you want to bet they auction all (or most) of it off for big bucks?
They can afford to give me a voucher to pay for a conversion box. They should really pay the full load, not $40.
Or leave the damned spectrum alone.
Re:Makes perfect sense (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that by doing so, they're aiding the campaign to implement DRM and "close the analog hole"s.
If digital TV provided the same freedom and flexibility as analog TV, this wouldn't even be a story on Slashdot.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't live in tornado alley, but rather on the gulf coast of Florida. Needless to say, hurricanes are a fact of life for us. I can relate to this concern.
During a hurricane, it's very important to keep up with fast-changing weather updates. For example, during Hurricane Charley, the storm made a sudden transition from category 2 to category 4 strength, plus took a jog in our direction. What was going to be a non-event for us very quickly turned into a direct threat to our safety. Thanks to the local news broadcast, we were able to keep up to date with the storm's progress.
I should point out that in a hurricane, you can pretty much count on losing power, cable, phone and of course satellite. The only way to watch the weather radar is by a battery powered TV, picking up a local broadcast.
Until handheld digital TVs are readily available and affordable, the converter boxes will be of limited use to me during a hurricane. If I'm huddled away under the stairs without power, will I need to plug the converter box into a UPS so I can watch the local weather broadcast on a portable TV?
Will digital TVs be affordable enough that a typical Florida retiree on a fixed income can afford to buy one?
The government will make a net profet on this deal (Score:4, Insightful)
A billion sound like a lot of money but in the US that amounts to less then four bucks per person.
You're confused... (Score:4, Insightful)
The summary, which claimed "our government is seriously going to spend this much money on upgrading peoples' televisions." shows a serious lack of understanding. "The government" is us.
In simple terms, this just means that we, as taxpayers, will be giving ourselves $80 in coupons, and funding bureaucrats along the way. For the $80 we get, we'll probably spend that and an extra $40 to support those bureaucrats, given the inefficiencies of the federal government. Furthermore, this will likely be taken as a signal to RCA and LG that they can hold prices higher for a while, because it amounts to a mandated time payment plan (buy now, pay at taxtime), and hides the true cost. The net effect is that the taxpayer will be inefficiently funding bureaucrats and private industry.
Absolute best case, if you're a liberal, is that this is a minor means of income redistribution.
postponing disposal of old TVs (Score:3, Insightful)
The govt may also be concerned about staving off a surge of TVs being disposed of. Even if affordable HDTVs become available, there will be people with TVs that can be used if they have a converter box. This is admittedly a secondary concern but one worth considering.
Re:Makes perfect sense (Score:3, Insightful)
The government could instead use the revenue to fund wars instead. At least Americans get a coupon so they can continue to sit in front of the tube.
Could you imagine might happen if Joe six-pack TV stopped working all of a sudden? What would he do with his free time? He might notice that he's pissed off at his diminishing importance in the world and start a revolution.
TV is still the soporific for the masses. Digital TV (with the coupon deal) increases the number channels, at a lower cost, to be sure that Joe has no time or motivation to realize his sorry state.
Re:Yeah, this is chump change... (Score:5, Insightful)
The hell it doesn't! That precisely what it's for. The guy with the most bling gets the chicks. And that's how they decide who's "worthy". That's how nature works, and that's what life is all about...getting laid and reproducing. Every single thing we do is for that explicit purpose. And that would include all the plumage and war trophies, and for that matter, that's what capitalism is all about. It is, and we are nature in its purest form.
Get rid of manufacturing jobs and we'll all be working the fields, just like ancient Sumeria. There wil be no doctors because they be too busy growing their own food.
All the manufacturing and agricultural work is supposed to be done by machines. We have the knowledge to live this way, but the subjugation of other humans seems to be more profitable, and natural for the moment. Contrary to what most of you might think, we really are not in control. We are still motivated by the most basic of instincts.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just last week, at a local department store, I saw a pallet of 19- or 20-inch televisions for sale in one of the main isles, which isn't at all unusual.
And it was a lousy set, by all appearances. But it did have a built-in ATSC tuner, which would let it watch HD shows over-the-air (at lower resolution, but so what).
But that didn't surprise me much, either.
What surprised me was that the whole kit was less than $100. If that is not an affordable HD-receiving set, then I do not know what is.
Re:Yeah, this is chump change... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, this is chump change... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, and construction. And architecture. And computers for architects to use. And programmers for to write software for architects to use. And junk food and soda makers to feed programmers. And pizza delivery guys to show up with junk food and soda. And someone to make Taco Bell hot sauce.
Citizens of USA called Americans (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, this is chump change... (Score:2, Insightful)
I already saw that nonsense elsewhere in the thread. And it convinces me of nothing. Toys do not progress make. And I don't measure progress in yearly model updates or volumes of currency changing hands. I had plenty of good jobs before any of your "new" gadgets came out, and I sure don't need them to stay alive now. As a matter of fact they have eliminated some of the jobs I used to do. Which is fine because they do it better with less effort. This is what I want, for the machines to do all the work. It will make mincemeat of that old economic system and silly theories you all cling to out of fear of change.
Re:Let them be happy, then. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not advocating a Luddite movement, only pointing out that TV dulls your mind. Even putting aside politics, do you really think that a 1/2-hour long documentary on crocodiles would teach you as much as an article about them in National Geographic?
Picking up politics again, you'd be better informed if you stopped watching TV news altogether and read every issue of Harpers and The National Review. Add in the Economist if you're ambitious. Pick magazines from different parts of the political spectrum. Don't just read Mother Jones, but don't just read The American Spectator, either. Subscribe to a few and alternate which ones you read. Have them around your house, and if you have kids, let them see you reading. Even Rolling Stone has good articles. Fox News is political theater, not news, and CNN and the other networks are only vying to keep up. Even Olbermann, who is so fun to watch stick it to O'Reilly, is still entertainment, not news.
Every day I deal with people who think they're informed because they watch the news. They know about some missing kid, about Britney Spears, and they know that liberals want the terrorists to win. But mention that the US National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the Iraq war is making terrorism worse, and you don't get fierce debate--you get blank looks. TV is great for the "gotcha!" soundbite, but it's horrible for perspective and nuance. You need to read. No, I'm not saying that all educated people agree with me, politically or otherwise. I've worked with an arch-conservative who I really respected, because he had done his reading and was willing to talk about stuff. We don't have to agree, because this isn't about my opinion vs. your opinion. This is about having a common ground of facts on which we can base a debate. Over half of the people who rely on TV news still think that Iraq was behind the WTC attacks. How do you have a debate with a person like that?
Re:Let them be happy, then. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is an Obscenity (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, this is chump change... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How about misdirection... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, not buying it. Why can't grandma pony up 40 bucks, especially since she gets a fat social security check every month? Instead of your demagogic misdirection, how 'bout you face facts: The government is subsidizing mind control devices in order to ensure the passivity of the populace.
(As a person who hates TV and doesn't own one, it really pisses me off that my tax dollars are being spent on this boondoggle. Fortunately, the avarice of the convert-makers will ensure that the device costs far more than 40 dollars.)
You want demagoguery? How about this: The government should send a check for 40 dollars to every single cigarette smoker to account for increased prices (because of lawsuits & taxes). Or maybe the government should send 40 grand to Coca-cola for every soda/pop machine that is removed from our schools because of those uppity parents' groups.
Your demagogic judo misses a very salient point: TV is bad for you. It's bad for your mind, your body and your soul. Why is the government subsidizing something that, by almost all accounts, is detrimental to our health? Children spend 44.5 hours per week in front of screens [mediafamily.org] -- as much time as I spend at my job -- and the government is not only unconcerned they're funding this? Don't you see something wrong here?
The posters who mentioned Bread & Circuses are right on. This is about pacifying the population. If we didn't have TV to numb our brains people might start to wake up to all the nefarious shit going on around us. Ideally, TV would be an excellent medium to tackle these social ills, but the mega-media-corps rarely seem to do so, especially when their own bottom line is at risk.
Instead, we will all continue working all day, going home to veg for a few hours and then waking up and doing it again... and with our softened brains we'll never have time to ponder why a highly-advanced country like ours works so much, yet has so little to show for it (besides bigscreen TVs). With American Idol on we'll never deduce that the rich are stealing from us through inflation, real-estate boom & busts, taxes and other financial trickery that make it possible for the middle classes' earning power to actually decline [spectator.org] over the last 30 years despite the rich getting fantastically richer.
We are being FUCKED. But most people are too hypnotized to notice.
Re:Why bother to have more than one priority? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because I own the airwaves. The government is paying me for the use of my partial ownership of that shared resource. They are taking in more than they spend on it through sales of spectrum leases. So it is a fully funded expense. It is not subsidizing the businesses, but one of the few subsidies that is paid to people. You may think it wrong, but it is less wrong than most of what they do. "free market" is a joke when discussing and entire industry that wouldn't exist without the government's control. The airwaves are tightly regulated by the government. Nothing over them can really be "free market." All the content put out over them is protected by the government by a government granted monopoly. And you are complaining about $40? There is nothing inconsistent with the government's stance on this. They have subsidized and regulated the industry in multiple ways for many years.