Spectrum of Greed

There are lots of opinions flying around about delaying the final cut over to digital TV on February 17.  Many, including President-elect Obama suggest a 3 month extension would be prudent, citing a backlog of 2 million people that requested but didn’t receive set top box coupons and more people leaving cable and satellite TV with our economic downturn that will now go without television if additional steps aren’t taken.

Not to take anything away from the politicians, bloggers and reporters that are lamenting the stories of those who will no longer be able to watch Opera, Jerry Springer or Geraldo, but I do not share the opinion that life is not worth living with out TV.  In fact, I would be willing to bet that many in this country today would prefer a faster internet connection to TV if given the choice.  While I realize that a younger generation has been at least partially snared by Lost, 24, and other tv programming, they also use Tivo to watch it when it is convenient to them, or even find the sessions on disk or online.

The argument mounted by many is a TV is a necessity in case of emergency.  I think that with radio, the emergency broadcast system, and community alert infrastructures, a television is not really necessary.  It should be frightening to broadcasters to contemplate the possibility of 5% of the population suddenly discovering good books, exercise, adventure, radio and other alternatives to the boob tube if they can’t get to it. That is probably the biggest real threat to anyone from a swift cut over to digital.

Which brings me to my original question, “Who will really benefit from a delay?”  Involved in this transaction besides the public are those companies that bid, paid and were awarded the spectrum that is to be delivered for their use on February 17.  The final involved party is the broadcasters that have to give up the spectrum.  If we delay the availability of the spectrum by 3 months to the winners, will the FCC be in violation of it’s contract?  Will the government have to pay money back to the vendors that purchased the right to use the spectrum?  Are any damages payable to the vendors?

And now what will the broadcasters do?  They had to make all the changes to get ready to broadcast in digital, and stop in analog.  All of them by this time are broadcasting in digital, and at the same time they are also broadcasting in analog, awaiting the time where they can pull the plug on the old analog systems and start taking advantage of a single new system that probably costs them much less to operate than their old one.

So we increase costs to the broadcasters losing the bandwidth by forcing them to support two systems for an additional three months, we short change by three months the vendors that bought the spectrum the broadcasters lost their right to, and we are doing this in the name of protecting citizens inalienable rights to watch TV that is nothing more than a distraction to real life at best.

Why don’t we get this worked up over the lousy data bandwidth options we provide to our citizens today?  How about the complete lack of a high speed wireless data network that we could hang all kinds of new economy businesses on? The new administration had indicated that they see the potential here and will manage these assets to spur innovation.

As soon as possible - that is when the switch to digital TV should occur.  Unless it gives the new FCC the ability to right the injustice of the original auction process, there is no good reason to delay this cut over, and lots of bad results if it is delayed.