By Robert MacMillan
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 13, 2005; 10:18 AM

No news outlet makes a stronger case for how dramatic the change to digital television will be than the Austin American-Statesman:

"On Super Bowl Sunday in 2009, millions of football-loving Americans with old-fashioned analog televisions might lean over to adjust their sets' rabbit-ear antennas and see nothing but static."

You got a problem with that? Tough. Because 2009 would be a reprieve -- it could be happening sooner.

At a Senate Commerce committee hearing Tuesday, Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) suggested extending the time frame for making analog TVs officially obsolete. National Association of Broadcasters chief Edward Fritts told Stevens that his members are on board.

Right now, the analog signals are supposed to cease on Dec. 31, 2006, or whenever 85 percent of the nation's households can receive digital signals. But things haven't progressed that smoothly for a number of reasons, the history of which is written about at length in many news articles today.

As News.com reported, the Federal Communications Commission wants next March to be the deadline for all TVs with 25- to 36-inch screens to contain digital tuners. (This excludes Casa de Random Access . What about you?)

VCRs and DVD sets would have to play ball by 2007. By July 2007, all TVs 13 inches and larger would have to use tuners, the Los Angeles Times reported.

But millions of us still might be caught flat-footed, as several senators said at the hearing. Nevada's John Ensign (R) worries that the government might have to subsidize the cost of the converter boxes, which could run from $35 to $50. News.com carried this quote: "I believe we can have some kind of a program, though I'm not sure what it will look like, for those low-income people who say they need a subsidy."

The L.A. Times chimed in with this: "Several lawmakers support using a portion of the auction proceeds [from a sale of unused analog frequencies] to fund a subsidy. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) has talked about a $500 million pot, limiting the subsidy to the poor. Others, including Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), contend that every affected household should be compensated."

Now, let me tell you something about most of the news coverage of the digital television conversion. The squabbles between TV makers, broadcasters, Congress, the FCC, consumer groups and countless other parties can be hard to follow. It tends to yield news stories that report on every skirmish rather than focusing on the big picture. Know what "carriage" is, for example? In the unlikely event that you don't and really want to find out, see the Dow Jones story.

The good thing about today's crop of stories is that they highlight in usually simple terms the things that you will need to know about the upcoming changeover. Most importantly, they answer the big question: "Why on earth are we being forced to do this?"

According to the broadcasters and technology folks, we demand better picture quality. We're not going to take this analog crap another minute! Oh, and once our analog TV sets aren't hogging that portion of the radio spectrum, the government can make millions of dollars by auctioning it off to telecom companies, who in turn will use the bandwidth to sell us things that will make them millions in turn.

There's also an argument that police and other emergency responders need to upgrade their communications networks, using the spectrum now devoted to our TV signals. I can't argue against that -- they're going to have to respond to the bloodshed that's sure to come in 2009 when millions of Americans who failed to upgrade discover that they can't watch the big game.

But look at this excerpt from the L.A. Times story: "How many TVs would no longer work in a switch to digital is hotly contested. Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, believes that 15 percent of U.S. households rely on over-the-air analog broadcasts. A February report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office put the figure at 21 million households, or about 1 in 5 homes. And the Consumer Electronics Association puts the figure at 32.7 million sets, or about 12 percent of all TVs in use today."

$500 million subsidies. Congressional hearings. Fears of being left "in the dark." I don't mean to sound like I'm advocating revolution, but how bad would it be if some of us couldn't watch all of a sudden? If my TV stopped working tomorrow, I might notice around the time the "60 Minutes" fall season begins.

Broadcasters -- and everyone involved in this situation -- make the case that we can't leave people without their TVs or else they will be left out of the loop on important news broadcasts, emergency alerts and all sorts of other crucial information. What will cause real pain is if people miss "Seinfeld" reruns, the latest "Apprentice" spinoff and Tiger Woods's shocking bogey on the 18th hole.

Maybe millions of people really will be left out by failing to switch to digital. Bring 'em on, baby. It's that many more millions of people I'll be able to entertain on the Internet. And the ad dollars that follow? Well heck, I need a paycheck too.

Here's to digital TV.

Eye Spy a New CBS Web Site

Speaking of moving TV content to the Web, CBSNews.com went public with its revitalization plans, taking on a renovation of the Web site that will include blogging. (It's safe to say that Morley Safer wasn't the prime architect here.)

"To be written by Vaughn Ververs, who had been the editor of Hotline, a Web site covering politics, the new blog, called Public Eye, will assemble questions from viewers, criticism from blogs and other sources, and immediately bring in reactions from the CBS newsroom," the New York Times reported. "Mr. Ververs will be able to interview CBS correspondents and executives and even bring cameras into the network's daily news meetings."

The move, the Times said, is part of the network's response to critics who questioned the network's news judgment after airing a report last year that said President Bush pulled political strings to get out of his National Guard commitments.

It's also a leap past cable -- which the network has not embraced -- into the great wide open of the Web, the Times said: "CBS has decided to treat its Web site much the way other networks treat their cable networks. Its correspondents and producers will create video news reports throughout the day that will be distributed only on its Web site. In addition, Web users will be able to see most of the breaking-news reports used on the network's daily broadcasts, though they will not be able to watch entire programs."

While the Web site will double its Internet news staff, it's not hiring any new reporters. (C'mon Mr. Heyward ! What's up with that?)

Getting into online video is a bold move on CBS's part, USA Today reported: "Virtually every major media company is recognizing that as people begin to feed Internet signals to TV sets as well as computers, millions may want to pick news, entertainment and sports they want to see off the Web rather than from packages of conventional TV channels offered by a cable, satellite, or phone company. ... Content owners love the idea of a medium without gatekeepers who can kill shows or reject channels. 'There's going to be television out the wazoo,' CNN/US president Jonathan Klein says. He ran online video service The FeedRoom before CNN hired him last fall. 'It'll be pausable, searchable, with all the customizable on-demand advantages of the Internet. It's a future that's not very far away.'"

And you won't need a freakin' converter box.

Philadelphia's Freedom to Sue

It's hard to provide a citywide wireless Internet network when a bunch of online businesses are stiffing you on their tax bills. At least that's what Philadelphia's legal team thinks.

The city sued Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline and Travelocity -- and 13 other online travel companies -- claiming that they aren't forking over as much as they should in hotel occupancy taxes, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Here's more: "The suit alleges that the agencies collected and paid the city's 7 percent hotel tax based on the discounted room rates rather than the higher rates charged to consumers. In other words, the suit contends, the city thinks the services should be collecting $7 in tax on a room that a hotel customer pays $100 for. But the services contend that they are required to pay only $6.30, or 7 percent of the discounted rate of $90 that they paid the hotel. The Philadelphia lawsuit is not the first that the online services have faced. The City of Los Angeles filed a similar suit against travel services in December."

Art Sackler of the Interactive Travel Services Association told the Inquirer that the lawsuit fails to compute: "Sackler said he was 'quite bewildered' by the city's suit because the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, in a June 2004 ruling, agreed with the travel services' position."

The city's solicitor, Romulo L. Diaz Jr., said he did not know how much the companies owe the city.

Send links and comments to robertDOTmacmillanATwashingtonpost.com .