Posted on 12/21/2002 10:16:02 AM PST by gitmo
How would you like Uncle Sam to help you buy a digital television? Would a $500 government rebate be enough to get you into the store? A TV industry analyst believes that, for many Americans, it would, and that tax credits may be the very best way to solve the chicken-and-egg problem that has stymied acceptance of next-generation digital TV.
YOU MAY THINK it odd that the federal government would even consider paying for a hunk of your new TV set. After all, it's not like the government doesn't have other things to do with the money. But money is precisely what this is all about.
When the feds authorized digital television, they assumed that existing television stations would abandon their old analog frequencies for the new digital channels. But that hasn't happened, and the 10-year timetable envisioned for the transition is now out the window.
That's a problem, because the government has already spent the money it raised by auctioning off the frequencies that were to be vacated by the TV stations. They auctioned off those frequencies, in part, to telecom companies who were going to use the spectrum to offer new digital services.
Now, we could talk about what a lunatic idea frequency auctions are, and how they haven't worked out nearly as well as proponents promised. But the fact remains that $16 billion in auction proceeds are already included in federal budget projections.
IT'S UNLIKELY that money will be in the federal coffers as soon as Congress hoped. Until broadcasters give up their chunks of spectrum and switch to digital, the auction bidders aren't likely to pay up. If digital television adoption doesn't speed up soon, there's the possibility the transition from analog to digital won't be complete for another 20 years. It was supposed to be over and done with by the middle part of this decade.
Phil Swann, editor of TVPredictions.com and a frequent guest on my radio program, is the force behind the $500 rebate idea. He thinks it's better to convince people to buy new televisions than to force digital TV tuners on them. That latter plan is just what the FCC has ordered consumer electronics manufacturers to do, beginning with big-screen TVs in 2004.
Like many people, I sort of gag on the idea of tax dollars being used to help people buy television sets. I'd rather see the money do something useful, like feed hungry kids or provide decent mental health care. Of course, I'm not the idiot who linked the federal budget to getting people onto digital television, so I'm clearly out of step.
OF COURSE, $16 billion isn't much--especially spread out over several years--when the federal budget deficit has been predicted by some analysts to top $200 billion (plus the cost of whatever happens in Iraq). But every little bit will help when we're talking about either raising taxes or cutting programs.
Should any of that $16 billion be used as rebates to get people to switch to digital TV? Well, at $500 a set, a million digital televisions would cost a half-billion dollars. Twenty million sets--which you'd think would be enough to jumpstart the transition--would cost $10 billion. I can't imagine we'd actually spend that much, but the math illustrates just how expensive this program could be.
In the digital age, the government could have important new roles to play beyond protecting our shores and delivering the mail. But should paying for television sets be one of them? In order to protect much-needed--and already budgeted--revenue, it may have to be. We'll see.
I hate waiting. ;)
Your posts promted me to go back to Circuit City this afternoon. I grabbed a salesman and he sat me down next to two projection TVs - one of which he swore was a satellite HDTV signal, the the TV next to it a non-HDTV set. They were both carrying the same basketball game.
The HDTV picture was more crisp and well defined. On a projection screen you could really see the difference. The reason I have shied away from projection TVs in the past was the IMHO crappy picture as opposed to the consistently sharper tube TV picture.
HDTV has cured that problem.
We are redoing the family room next year are looking to put in an HDTV. Hopefully the prices will continue to fall and more DIRECTV stations will ramp up to HDTV in about ten months or so.
Plus, with picture in picture, it will be a neat 45 inch computer monitor (I'm serious) :>)
We go to Las Vegas once a year. I think it will be in the fall, tho.
My fun meter would peg out if I could ever make it to THAT show.
It's usually a race between that and my feet.
No. Those "big dummies," to quote Redd Foxx (RIP), should just cut out 16 billion in pork...for starters...
The FCC should keep its high-definition/digital nose out of the manufacturers' business! Why Uncle Sam might buy you a TV
I wonder...would these HDTVs make a better "platform" for telescreens technology?
Even newer topic; who has a bigger ass...?
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