It hit me this afternoon while watching the noon news. There was a text scroll across the bottom noting the DTV transition on Feburary 17, 2009, and the scroll told you what to do in order to keep on receiving over-the-air TV after that date. In case you don’t know, those who watch TV over-the-air using a regular analog TV will have to get a converter box before February 17, because on that day, analog TV stations are shutting down, leaving only their digital transmissions. The TV channels’ frequencies that go blank will then be used for first responder radio services, like police and fire.
It seems like every couple of hours, every broadcast TV channels are running those scrolls. On top of that, there are public service announcements that announce the same thing about once every several hours, and they give you all the details. On top of that, any given local newscast runs a pseudo-news story about the DTV transition, and they again explain all the details to you about what will happen and what you should do to retrofit your analog TV to be useful after February 17.
By the time next February comes and goes, the media will have gone on and on about the DTV transition for thirteen-and-a-half months.
Plain words, the media are going through great pains to give you all the details and explain to you all the intricacies of the DTV transition, such that the only people who don’t know the score are cave-dwelling retards. Meanwhile, they can’t find a few moments to explain anything about gas prices, tax rebate checks, food prices, guns and political parties. The reason is that the former is about the media itself. Of course they’re going to make sure that you’ll be able to watch them after February 17. Since 33% of American households don’t have cable or satellite, and most of those don’t have an HDTV, they don’t want to lose those eyeballs. But I’ll be damned if they extend this luxury to the real news that they tell us they’re reporting.
Broadcast Engineering Magazine, Today:
Consumers Union, a consumer advocacy group that also publishes “Consumer Reports” magazine, found in a survey that while 90 percent of the nation is aware of the transition, 25 percent mistakenly believe that one must subscribe to cable or satellite to receive television reception after February.
Another 41 percent think that every TV in a house must have a new converter box, even those that are already connected to cable or satellite.
Meaning that when the MSM actually try to explain something, they screw it up.
