After more than a year of being hollered at more than 450,000 times a day in “reminders” to get ready for the February 17 switch-over to digital television, it looks like Congress in its wisdom may delay the switch. According to Broadcasting & Cable magazine:

“The DTV hard date appears to be softening.

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“Consumers Union (CU) late Wednesday asked the heads of the congressional committees with telecommunications oversight, as well as the current and future administrations, to consider delaying the Feb. 17, 2009 transition date.

“And at least one of those key Congressional players, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Telecommunications & Internet Subcommittee, says the date may have to move.

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“In a letter to Rep. Markey, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committe, and others, the CU requested that Congress consider a delay “until a plan is in place to minimize the number of consumers who will lose TV signals, particularly by fixing the flaws in the federal coupon program created to offset the cost of this transition.” 

“The National Telecommunications & Information Administration this week announced that it had hit the funding ceiling for its program to distribute government subsidies for DTV-to-analog converter boxes and that new applications would have to be put on a waiting list unless the cap were raised or the Antideficiency Act (ADA) rule preventing it from spending money it expected to be freed up by expired coupons was waived.”

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Also, didn’t AETN spend the last few months warning all of us in LR and El Dorado that the station was going off the air for six weeks, beginning January 2?

It’s still going strong. Do they still plan to go off the air?

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Not griping, you understand.

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