I don’t usually blog about national policy issues, but this one is too big and too ignored for me to resist. It’s also a classic illustration of how multinational corporations and their shills in Congress operate to obtain massive handouts from taxpayers, and convince us it’s an urgent national need.

If you haven’t yet heard of digital television, you will. After April 2009, your trusty broadcast television will no longer have any TV signals to receive. Why? Because Congress, the cable companies, and large electronics manufacturers have decided there’s more money to be made, and they’d like you to pay it.

Here’s how it’s all gone down, step by step, following the script of many Bush administration disasters, including the Iraq War.

1. Create an artificial demand
2. Come up with a cover story (bonus points for a 9/11 connection)
3. Convince the people it’s in their interest and create compliance through fear
4. Give away as much money as you can to your corporate supporters

Here’s the details:

“Problem”: Tens of millions of Americans still watch TV from free, over-the-air signals. “Solution”: Shut off those public signals, and force Americans to pay, either through new equipment purchases or by shifting to cable or satellite companies. It’s a great plan for massive new profits for media giants, but how will the corporations who benefit get Americans to swallow this?

1) Create an artificial demand by creating a date after which the public spectrum is taken back from TV broadcasters and screens go blank. But don’t just take the spectrum away–offer the broadcaster a different frequency and give them six channels for every one channel they used to have. Billions of dollars worth of spectrum for free. And make viewers shift from analog to digital broadcasting so every American has to buy a new digital TV or switch to cable or satellite.

2) Come up with a cover story involving 9/11. Congressional testimony on the digital TV switchover has focused on the need for more radio spectrum space for emergency communications because First Responders at the World Trade Center on 9/11 reportedly did not have enough radio spectrum to effectively communicate. The current broadcast TV spectrum can then be given to First Responders. So there’s no profit motive here at all, is there?

3) Convince the people it’s in their interest and create compliance through fear. We are being told, including by our own Senator John McCain who made the motion to shut down broadcast TV, that our fight against terrorism requires that we give this spectrum to the first responders, so we all must sacrifice for the sake of national security and buy new digital TVs or subscribe to cable & satellite service. Even more terrifying, we’ll lose access to our favorite TV shows if we don’t switch NOW!!!

4) Give as much money as you can to your corporate supporters: Congress is scared that citizens will not switch to Digital TV and will end up with blank screens in April 2009. This fear is justified–a 1997 bill on DTV projected that Digital TV would have 85% of the market by 2006; the current share is 12%. Viewers are not choosing to move to DTV on its own benefits, so we have to be forced by an imposed deadline. To avoid the outcry of millions of constituents, both houses of Congress are set to pass a bill that will commit more than $3 billion in taxpayer money to buy DTV converter boxes for every American that wants one. All of this money will go to two multinational corporations who manufacture these set-top boxes.

The fix is in. Congress is giving away billions of dollars to a few multinational media & electronics conglomerates in order to force us to adopt a technology that has already failed in the market on its own, and they’ve scared us into thinking that we have no other choice. If this works, as it seems to be doing, there’ll be plenty more scams like it coming down the pike.

This is being done by the same Congress that is trying to cut more than a trillion dollars over ten years in legitimate domestic spending on transportation, education, health care, and much more in an effort to pour money into the pockets of Bechtel, Halliburton, and other corporations rebuilding the Gulf Coast.

We’re past the time when any of us can simply sit on the political sidelines and hope that good decisions are being made in our name.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 24th, 2005 at 11:04 am and is filed under Media Watch, Respecting Citizens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.