In January, close to two million people were stuck on the waiting list for $40 coupons that only cover part of the cost of a digital television converter. The converters make new over- the-air digital signals watchable on analog televisions, expire after ninety days, and originally could not be sent to anyone with a P.O. box or nursing home address. Recently sworn-in President Barack Obama urged Congress to delay the digital television transition originally scheduled for February 17 until June 12, and Congress complied, costing taxpayers another $650 million as part of the stimulus bill, which will be spent on staffing FCC call centers and outreach programs to help Americans weather a transition most were prepared for.
“It's hard not to be cynical about this, but if you look at the glacial pace with which the federal government has moved in all things concerning the transition, we were immediately concerned as soon as it was clear that the coupon program was unable to process coupons," said Joel Kelsey of the Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports. “The largest problem with the transition, and the best argument for delay, was that the coupon program failed consumers when they needed it most."
This failed voucher program, which will cost taxpayers $1.99 billion instead of $1.34 billion, could not keep up with demand. Awareness was not the issue. Traffic to the DTV transition website peaked during the week ending January 3, according to Hitwise. And although the FCC hired an extra 4,265 people to field calls to 1-888- CALL-FCC, only 25,000 people called those centers on February 18, when 421 television stations stopped broadcasting analog signals, according to the National Association of Broadcasters.
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