Do We Now Have to Buy New TVs? Fork over MORE Money?

Do We Now Have to Buy New TVs? Fork over More Money? by Roxanne McDonald

Who decided on this new kind of television, when did we vote on it, and what do we do now…with our very expensive, recently-purchased sets?

I just finished watching Francois Truffaut’s directorial version of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (mostly for the last ten minutes wherein each person has become a book), and noted how the futuristic TV was quite a prophetic item on Bradbury’s part. Not only is it huge, it is also to some degree interactive—which, thought up by Bradbury in 1950, anticipated the internet, really.

But also eerily similar to what we revere today, the TV was a social imperative: in fact, at one point in the story, Montag’s fire captain says, “Oh, you just have the one wall screen,” shaming Montag.

We now are faced with a similar shame, or obligation:

there’s some buzz on the news, on the net, that we are going to have to cough up more money—again—for yet another corporate creation. Broadcasting is shifting to digital television, and using technology that would require a (mandatory) broadcast digital television (DTV) tuner in every TV…or in every new TV.
Or this is what I thought, what I feared, and what I was prepared to bitch and moan about to anyone who would listen.

However, CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) has their wits about them and oppose the new requirements for already financially overburdened folks. They protest/reject both “high consumer costs and the scant percentage of households relying on over the air television reception.” They subsequently oppose the FCC (Federal Communication Commission) order requiring the DTV tuner in all new sets.

As one report, “Americans Should Not Be Forced to Buy DTV Over-the-Air Tuners Says CEA ,” quotes CEA president and CEO Gary Shapiro, “The FCC has just imposed a multi-billion dollar annual TV tax on American consumers…. With fewer than 13 percent of

American households relying on over-the-air reception for their TV signal, we don’t need a digital broadcast tuner embedded in every new television in order to accelerate the DTV transition; we need digital cable equipment compatibility - the option for consumers to buy a high-definition set, take it home, plug it into the cable jack in their wall and turn it on just like they do today in the analog world. A mandatory digital broadcast tuner would be a costly vestigial organ in the sets used by millions of American cable and satellite viewers.”
That’s what I was getting’ ready to gripe about! Thank you, Mr. Shapiro. It is not only about the cost but it is about that gross abstraction we so revere, called “freedom”. It is also about having a monolith NOT displace the financial responsibility—onto its customers. We should have the option to invest or not…regardless of how much we love, love, love our televisions and what they bring us.

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