Brother, have you been converted?

Lots of publicity lately concerning the coming switchover from analog
broadcasting to digital only, now scheduled for February 2009 (in the
United States).

I can understand the commercials for various companies' brands of
converter
boxes not exactly telling the whole story.  But the so-called news stories
-- the items that appear as part of the program content, not the
commercial
content, of the news -- the ones I've seen are not emphasizing this point:

You only need a converter box (or a digital-receiving set) if you're
watching over-the-air broadcast signals, if you're getting your programs
through the antenna.  If you have cable, or if you have satellite TV, you
can have the oldest TV set still working and it will still work without a
converter.

I don't know where to find the statistics, but it doesn't seem to me that
many TV viewers are watching over-the-air TV anymore.  One of the Kansas
City stations doesn't even make its over-the-air channel number part of
its
logo.  The just call themselves "NBC Action News," or "Your NBC Action
News
station," which indicates to me that most of their audience doesn't see
them on their over-the-air channel, 41.

I wonder how many people are buying converter boxes who don't actually
need
them.



-- 
All opinions expressed herein are only that, and are my own.
Pax vobis***.
estron@[EMAIL PROTECTED]