Americans who want a converter box permitting older televisions to receive digital broadcasts will be eligible for federal subsidies, according to new rules announced Monday, reports C/Net.

The $1.5 billion coupon program is designed to help qualified U.S. households obtain digital-to-analog converter boxes. It’s part of the scheduled February 2009 shutdown of over-the-air broadcasts in the United States. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) held a press conference here Monday to unveil its long-awaited final rules for a congressionally mandated subsidy program.

Starting Jan. 1, 2008, all U.S. households will be eligible to request up to two $40 coupons to be used toward the purchase of up to two, digital-to-analog converter boxes, while the initial $990 million allocated for the program is available.

Under the rules, all U.S. households will be able to apply for up to two $40 coupons to defray the cost of a basic digital-to-analog converter box during the program’s initial phase, in which up to 22.5 million coupons are expected to be available. March 31, 2009 is the last day to make the requests. Boxes are expected to cost between $50 and $70 apiece.

If that initial $890 million worth of coupons run out, NTIA has the power to ask Congress to hand over an additional $450 million, creating up to 11,250,000 more vouchers. Those coupons would be reserved, however, for households that self-certify that they rely solely on over-the-air broadcasts, as opposed to cable or satellite.

The coupons have no income limit, meaning that millionaires would be as eligible for taxpayer-provided discounts as someone living below the poverty line. NTIA Administrator John Kneuer emphasized that the voucher program is only one way for consumers to ensure a seamless shift when the nation shifts to all-digital broadcasts on February 19, 2009. Consumers who already subscribe to cable or satellite services are not expected to have any changes to make.

According to a recent National Association of Broadcasters survey, an estimated 19 million households do not subscribe to those services. That means they must either acquire a digital-to-analog converter box, a digital-ready television, or another device, such as a VCR or DVD player, that contains a digital tuner, or their analog televisions will effectively go dark.

Good luck getting an ATSC signal using rabbit ears. The United States, it might be argued, is stuck with ATSC because the non-mobile 8-VSB modulation produced better Grade B Contour coverage maps — and that’s how advertising is sold. European-developed COFDM had no royalty benefits for the ATSC gang of four and was rejected. As a result, U.S. consumers pay almost $50 per set in ATSC “royalty fees” and the NAB struggles with a (shrinking) 10% share (barely) getting an off-air picture.

And whose fault is that.

Ex-Portland Political reporter Mark Hass points out that Portland stations used to cover hard political news:

When I was down there (Salem), we literally had segments in the newscasts every single night where we would sort of have the news from Salem. And we would do maybe one major two-minute story followed by one or two, sometimes more, shorter VO (voice over) versions of stories. And the whole thing would be encompassed within a live shot, maybe five minutes. Today that would be unheard of.

But these days, it’s all about scandal.

Broadcasters had their chance. They blew it. Getting “free” channels from the FCC for corporate media now looks like antiquated and unfair public policy. Advertisers and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, teamed with 700 MHz and presidential aspirants may squash ‘em like a bug.

Democracy Now!

Posted by Sam Churchill on Monday, March 12th, 2007 at 11:12 am.