What is the latest word on the switch to all digital? I was waiting for a prescription in a drug store and was reading a Consumer Digest magazine on digital television and they made it saound like 2009 was the date.
fx
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2009 was the initial cutoff date set by an FCC regulation. That date also had some caveats. It also said 85% of the homes in the nations TV's must have digital tuners for the cutoff to take effect. Also included were the dates for displays of specific diagonal size screens that the manufacuters must begin to have digital tuners included during the manufacturing process of those models. All models 35" in diagonal measurement and over manufactured after July of this year had to include a digital tuner. For smaller units the cutoff is some time in the future, I could research it for you if for some reason you considered it critical.
However currently there are several bills in Congress designed to speed up the process to as soon as sometime in 2006. All the current bills have some sort of provisions to provide either inexpensive or free digital OTA STB's to anyone still using/owning a TV with an analog only tuner. Their reasoning up front is so the analog spectrum can be used for local government and other emergency services. The part they never speak about is that a large portion of the analog spectrum will be put up for sale to commercial entities. It is expected to bring in billions of dollars in unspoken for goverment revenue. Needless to say the pork barrell will be crammed full if this extra money comes sooner rather than later.