Here's a little-known fact that blurs Seattle's image of itself as a high-tech city: In the lead-up to the Feb. 17 national switch from analog to digital TV, the U.S. Commerce Department says most of the city's antenna-using households are likely to end up with dark screens.
How does the Commerce Department know? About a year ago, to help people with older televisions get ready for the Congressionally mandated switch to the newer TV signal, Commerce started distributing $40 coupons that could be used to buy digital converter boxes to hook up to their sets.
It turns out that a large percentage of the city's over-the-air TV households haven't signed up to get the coupons mailed to them, says Jonathan Lawson, executive director of Reclaim the Media, a Seattle advocacy group working on the issue. If Congress doesn't vote to delay the Feb. 17 switch, as some in the Senate tried last week, Seattle is headed for a real "Y2K"-type disaster, he says, in which TVs stop working, especially in homes of the elderly, low-income families and non-English speakers.
The glitzy public-service commercials that have advertised the switch and the coupons on TV didn't speak to those in the greatest danger of losing reception, Lawson says. Or people just can't afford to spend $60 or $80 on a converter box -- even if they could get one of the $40 coupons.
Earlier this month, the Commerce Department said it had, on paper, spent all of the $1.3 billion Congress gave it for the coupon program. Because many coupons expired before people used them, there's still some money left, Lawson says, but Commerce is now waiting for issued coupons to expire before sending out new ones, resulting in a waiting list that now tops 2.1 million, according to an article in USA Today.
As a result, he says, it's now taking over a month to get the coupons, which are limited to two per household. With converter boxes starting at just $40, the coupon could, in theory, pay for a box with no cash outlay, but that's not how retailers are playing it, Lawson says. Store chains that Reclaim the Media has contacted such as Best Buy and Rite-Aid only stock digital converter models that cost $60 and up because there's no profit, he's been told, in the cheaper boxes.
"Some people have put it off," he says of the switch, "but for a huge number or people, having to spend $60 or even $20 is an economic hardship. Those are the people who going to be left in the dark."
A Senate bill aimed at delaying the switch, which will ultimately give consumers a crisper picture and more channels, was blocked last week by Republicans. Democrats say they'll try for another vote on the measure, which would push the deadline back to June 12 -- a move urged by the Consumers Union and President Obama to give people more time to figure out the change. Opponents, however, say the industry shouldn't have to wait any longer for the freed-up broadcast spectrum, which the government has already sold off.
Lawson puts the odds of a delay at 50-50. In the meantime, because Seattle's not ready, the national Leadership Conference on Civil Rights has provided grants to two organizations in the city -- Reclaim the Media and the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center -- to create a DTV Assistance Center, one of a number of centers that the LCCR is funding across the country to field calls and lead hands-on workshops in poorer communities on how to make the switch.
"As a media activist, I'm very critical of the quality of television," Lawson says, "but the fact remains that local TV news is still the most common source of news" for everything from politics to natural disasters. "For people who rely on free over-the-air TV," he says, "it's not a luxury, it's an essential lifeline."