Three million dollars. That is how much one local television station spent to upgrade their equipment to make it compliant for the DTV transition. I spoke with one of the engineers at the station earlier today and he said that is roughly what they have spent so far to upgrade their equipment for the transition. This equipment includes tower upgrades and transmitter upgrades--basically taking the existing equipment and updating it to make it DTV compliant. Imagine the size of the bill if this station had bought all new equipment rather than updating existing equipment. Yikes!
Now, I don't know about you, but $3,000,000 still seems like a lot of money for a smaller market television station to dish out for a federally mandated project. Since it is something that the government is requiring of all full power television stations, wouldn't you think they would help to pay the bill? The answer, unfortunately for those stations, is NO! Unlike the consumer who can request a coupon to help defer the cost of their converter box, the small town television stations don't get the option to request help for upgrading their stations.
The good news (at least for people who live in Eastern North Dakota) is that all of the local television stations have already completed the upgrade to broadcast digitally. That means the average television consumer who will be buying a converter box before February can buy one now if they want and get a digital quality picture without having to wait until 2009. If you don't live in Eastern North Dakota and would like to find out if the stations in you area have converted yet, visit the National Association of Broadcasters website.
1 comment:
Interesting post. That is surprising that there is no federal aid for some of these stations during the upgrade process. The government seems to hand out money for every other reason (just look at our debt), lol. I am sure they will make up the costs in due time from us consumers though. I am guessing if the stations in E. ND are done with the process, then almost all urban areas would be as well. Those are the areas they are gonna want to make sure are complete.
Post a Comment