Posted on 06/15/2009 2:57:47 PM PDT by Scott Martin
The long-awaited switch from analog to digital TV took place last Friday, and if you're like most people, you weren't aware of it. But if you are poor and/or stupid, you've probably had a rough weekend.
"Nearly 700,000 calls were received by a federal hot line this week from people confused about the nationwide switch from analog to digital TV broadcasts that occurred Friday.
About a third of the calls were about federal coupons to pay for digital converter boxes."
Does that really say, "federal coupons for digital converter boxes?"
"The largest volume of calls came from the Chicago area..."
No surprise there. Obama's been educating Chicagoans for years. The rest of America has a long way to go to catch up.
The shutdown of analog broadcast TV signals was originally slated for Feb. 17, but the date was delayed to June 12 after Obama urged Congress to postpone the switch because he feared that too many Americans who rely on analog TV sets to pick up over-the-air channels wouldn't be prepared.
Detroit, where liberalism has reigned for decades as the local economy and school system has continued to worsen, was probably the next most effected city by the switch.
"(T)he anxiety of the switch was heightened as viewers prepared to watch that night's Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.
"They were frantic," said Michael Gottlieb, director of the Michigan DTV help line, which received about 1,000 calls. "I can't tell you how many people we talked off the ledge."
Blacksphere, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite daily voices on Obama, sums it up well:
(Excerpt) Read more at patriotroom.com ...
Hard to believe that many folks are clueless, but....
I don’t care for digital myself, but I don’t watch much tv either. I find it is like watching video back in the modem days with breaks in the audio/video stream. Such as life I guess.
That’s just way too damn bad...imagine all them Democratic imbeciles can’t get their government news from the broadcast MSM now...it’s just a cryin’ damn shame....
Maybe Michael Moore was right, maybe we are the stupidest people on earth...
These folks couldn't find their way out of a paper bag without government intervention.
That is to say, “democrat voters”
They’ve only been told about it for a YEAR!
“...and school system has continued to worsen, was probably the next most effected city...”
The writer should examine his own material before throwing stones.
Totally clueless and looking to the government to make things better at someone else's expense.
Idiocracy was a work of non-fiction.
How would these people see Charlie on TV???? Must have been the entire audience for either MSNBCLSD of cBS calling in.
An incorrect noun/verb relation is equivalent to panic over television? Or a President who has paid billions of dollars for converter coupons for the poor? Good call. And thanks for the edit.
Is anyone else disgusted that there were actually freaking HOTLINES set up to handle angry folks calling in???? Seriously? If all you do is watch tv all day, sucking up the free stuff handed to you by the government, how the hell did you miss the info regarding FREE converters for your government provided living space?
It’s hard to imagine anyone not knowing. Many stations had ‘crawlers’, occasionally running at the bottom of the screen, for at least a year.
What’s the problem? If you need a converter, it’s because you can’t pick up the alphabetnetworks. No loss there.
Truth be told...I don’t think they’re stupid...bottom line they probably don’t want a “coupon” for a converter box, they probably just want the government to provide them for free.
What I really enjoyed this weekend was seeing the crawl on the broadcast networks giving people what numbers to call if they were having troubles now that the analog signal was turned off. It apparently never dawned on them that anybody having issues COULDN’T SEE the crawl.
We still had one or two analog broadcasts here showing nothing but how to hook the box up and who to call with problems. It was pretty funny.
“It’s hard to imagine anyone not knowing. Many stations had ‘crawlers’, occasionally running at the bottom of the screen, for at least a year.”
Problem...no read the ingles....
Most analog stations had been running a scroll at the bottom warning people about the conversion for months.
If people didn’t see it they don’t watch TV. If they did see it and didn’t know they either can’t read (in which case they need to learn to instead of watching TV) or were too stupid to care.
Screw em.
They should have had a coupon cutoff on live day too far as I’m concerned.
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