Poll: Have you seen a DTV transition commercial?

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Feb 26th 2008 at 1:06PM

With less than a year to go until the analog signals go dark, consumer awareness is one of the biggest concerns. While many analyst fear congress hasn't allotted enough money for advertising, we wonder if they've forgotten about all the public service announcement each station is required by the FCC to broadcast in return for the free use of America's airwaves. Some might argue that those who are the most affected have the best chance of catching one of these commercials, as the target audience is people who get their television programming exclusively via OTA antenna, and we'd go a bit further and say the same type don't have commercial skipping DVRs either. But these same people aren't the techy type and might just glance over any commercial not selling food or clothing, but in that case, there's no way to get to them anyways. We've seen a few of these commercials and wonder if the rest of the HD community has caught one yet, if not click through the break and watch.

Filed under: Industry, Polls, Regulatory, Set-top boxes, Tuners, OTA

Tags: 2009, converter, converter box, ConverterBox, cutover, digital tv, DigitalTv, dtv, dtv transition, DtvTransition, poll, polls, switchover, transition

Subscribe to these comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Scott @ Feb 26th 2008 1:21PM

We have one running that has an old lady explaining to her son and grandson how they can watch the game at her house in HD. It's kind of funny because she says she has a converter box, and gets all of her programming in HD on her HDTV. I assumed that if you had an HDTV, you wouldn't need a converter box. I have to say, she is pretty lucky to get ALL her programming in HD.

Neutral

Phour ZwanZig @ Feb 26th 2008 10:50PM

Hey Scott..

Not all HDTVs had digital tuners in them.. I own a Zeinth 50" RP HDTV 1080i, but I dont have a digital tuner, just analog, component, composite and lucky to have 1 DVI.

So in my case to get our local FOX HD channel, seeing we dont carry here on Cable, I had to buy a digital tuner. But I got one for my PC instead of waiting for a cheep stand alone tunerbox and just us MediaCenter and my 360 to watch FoxHD when I need to..

Neutral

Burrens @ Feb 26th 2008 1:36PM

So what is going to happen to my analog basic cable service? Is it going to disappear on this date as well? I have Time Warner by the way.

Neutral

Ben @ Feb 26th 2008 1:37PM

Most Cable co's will continue to pass on analog until at least 2011 or be forced to give out free STBs.

Neutral

Phour ZwanZig @ Feb 26th 2008 10:53PM

Here we are keepin our Analog service on til 2012. I really wish we would get rid of it sooner being its a bandwith hog. But we dont need to make ppl made either..

Neutral

Ghoti @ Feb 26th 2008 1:39PM

Our local cable company is running an ad where a lady comes on to tell you that if you have their service, you won't have to do anything. So, apparently, at least for the time being, they'll keep their analog going. This is Cox by the way.

They seem to allude that going with them is the only way you won't be affected.

Of course, if you have satellite and get your locals from the satellite company, you don't have to do anything either. But Cox doesn't mention that (surprise, surprise).

Neutral

Elliott @ Feb 26th 2008 1:51PM

Comcast has a similar ad that I've seen a couple times.

Neutral

Peetah @ Feb 26th 2008 2:05PM

I wish there were more OTA stations in the SF Bay Area. I'd love to get rid of comcast entirely. Only keeping them around for Food Network, Discovery, History, Comedy Central, and TBS. I've seen digital calbe and think OTA looks better most of the time.

Highly Ranked

miko34 @ Feb 26th 2008 2:07PM

What the heck am I gonna do now with my Sony Watchman I bought back in the 80s?

Neutral

Loban @ Feb 26th 2008 2:14PM

Hey, that picture is my TV. Panasonic Plasma. Whoever thought a thick silver bezel was a good idea was obviously drunk at the time, but it's a great TV nonetheless.

Neutral

ryaninc @ Feb 26th 2008 3:03PM

Is it just me or does the commercial above look really scam-ish? If I were an uninformed citizen, I would almost definitely tune that commercial out because it looks so much like an infomercial.

Neutral

TVGenius @ Feb 27th 2008 9:59AM

All three of our local stations are running them, ironically enough two are also showing them on their digital subchannels (but those are carried on basic cable as well). Our Time Warner runs them all over the place too, and they're not the evil cable company type, they're the legit ones.

Assassin's Creed 2's final dev diary takes us into Ezio's villa This is Modern Warfare 2's official launch party Smash TV creator talks potential sequel	Droid Does... only have 256MB of storage for apps With AdMob purchase, there's really no escaping Google advertising now Windows 7 security defeated by 8 out of 10 malware applications
Confirmed: 10.6.2 removes Atom CPU support from Snow Leopard Wireless Keyboard Update 2.0 now available Shacking up: iPhone sales plan at RadioShack sparks rally	Ray of light: U.S. temp worker hiring increased by 34k in October Cameron International: Pull-back is an opportunity Twenty years ago today, economic freedom returned to Eastern Europe
Xbox 360 Fancast 142 -- ODSB XBLM Deal of the Week: Saints Row 2 DLC Crackdown HDD installation now available	VIDEO: BMW M3 GTS takes to the track CR&S DUU Concept is a mototerminator for the rest of us Daily U-Turn: What you missed on 11.9.09
PC game sales start hitting early New Left 4 Dead patch adds 4 on 4 competitive matchmaking Atari confirms February 2 launch date for Star Trek Online	Fed-Up K.C. Ownership Pushed to Act Larry Johnson Released, Redskins Already Expressing Interest Bengals a Win Away From Controlling AFC North