WASHINGTON — After weeks of debate, Congress is giving consumers four more months to prepare for the upcoming transition from analog to digital television broadcasting.
However, Utah TV viewers won't get the benefit of the delay. Most Utah stations still plan to make the switch Feb. 17 despite Congress' action Wednesday.
The House voted 264-158 on Wednesday to postpone the shutdown of analog TV signals to June 12, to address growing concerns that too many Americans won't be ready by the Feb. 17 deadline that Congress set three years ago. The Senate passed the measure unanimously last week and the bill now heads to President Barack Obama for his signature.
The change is being mandated because digital signals are more efficient than analog ones. Ending analog broadcasts will free up valuable space in the nation's airwaves for commercial wireless services and emergency-response networks.
The delay is a victory for the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress, who maintain that the previous administration mismanaged efforts to ensure that all consumers — particularly poor, rural and minority Americans — will be prepared for the switchover.
The Nielsen Co. estimates that more than 6.5 million U.S. households that rely on analog TV sets to pick up over-the-air broadcast signals still are not ready. People who subscribe to cable or satellite TV or have a newer TV with a digital tuner will not be affected.
"The passage of this bipartisan legislation means that millions of Americans will have the time they need to prepare for the conversion," White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said in a statement.
However, an industry spokesman says most of Utah's broadcast stations will switch to digital on Feb. 17 as was previously planned.
Dale Zabriskie, president of the Utah Broadcasters Association, confirmed that KUTV Channel 2, KTVX Channel 4, KSL Channel 5, KSTU Channel 13, KJZZ Channel 14 and KUCW Channel 30 will all stop broadcasting their analog signals on Feb. 17.
"The main reason behind it is they feel that they are ready," Zabriskie said. "They have made the transition and done the steps they have been required to take over the past couple of years. We realize that there may be some people who are not fully ready for the switch but we also believe that in June there will be a lot of people who are not ready even though they had an extra four months."
But Zabriskie did say that the public broadcast stations (KUED Channel 7, KUEN Channel 9 and KBYU Channel 11) would all stay on analog until the June deadline.
"Another reason for the commercial stations to switch is the cost involved," Zabriskie said. "It costs a considerable amount of money in electricity to continue to broadcast it in analog and in most cases it had not been budgeted for."
Zabriskie said that so far about 500 stations across the country will also make the switch in February as planned, and others may still decide to do so. He said in order for the stations to go ahead with the switch they just have to notify the FCC and run a mandated number of advertisements reminding people that the change will be made.
As for people who live in very rural areas of the state who get their TV signals from translators, those signals will continue to be broadcast in an analog signal, Zabriskie said.
Wednesday's vote came one week after House Republicans blocked the bill under a special fast-track procedure that required two-thirds support to pass. This time, the bill passed the House under a regular floor vote, which requires a simple majority.
Among Democrats, 241 voted for the bill, while 10 voted against it. Among Republicans, 23 voted for the bill, while 148 voted against it.
Speaking on the House floor Wednesday, Rick Boucher, D-Va., chairman of the House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, said a delay was needed to prevent the digital transition from becoming a failure.
"It is unfortunate that Congress had to take additional action on this issue, but the prospect of leaving millions of consumers in the dark was simply unacceptable," subcommittee member Edward Markey, D-Mass., added.