The DTV threat

According to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, as of September 2007 there were some 112 million television households in the United States. Of those, about 58% were receiving cable and, according to DBS industry sources, about 28% were satellite subscribers. This indicates that about 14%, or about 16 million U.S. households, are still receiving TV programs by traditional over-the-air analog broadcasting. According to the Consumer Electronic Association, owners of some 22 to 28 million analog TVs will have to cope with the “Big Switch” to digital television broadcasting on February 17, 2009.

The question is, how are most consumers going to deal with the switch to DTV? Recent TV ads have been trying to alert viewers to the change, saying, “Digital TV is so much better that it has now become law” (I wonder if government plans to do the same for programming content ) and that they can now obtain coupons that will provide a discount on converters for their old sets. But to me, the commercial sounds as if it’s really selling the improved picture quality that DTV can bring to your home with a new TV set.

Based on empirical data obtained by checking out the curbside garbage in my neighborhood on trash collection days, I’d say that converters aren’t going to be the first choice for most people. Week after week, the number of sets awaiting pickup is increasing, and it’s not atypical for them to have handwritten messages on them saying “Works fine” or words to that effect. I suppose that the sets’ discarders hope to encourage someone else to take the TVs home and thereby assuage their guilt at adding still-functional electronic goods to a landfill somewhere.

The fact that the TV trade-up/toss-out has already started makes me think that by next February there won’t be a way to cross the street without scaling a mountain of discarded sets. Surely not all analog set owners will eschew converter boxes, but they may upgrade one analog set while tossing another. I know my household has two TVs, and we live in a an apartment so small you can listen to the TV in the front room from the bedroom in the back.

One of our local representatives on the New York City Council is trying to get a law passed that will require manufacturers of electronic systems sold in the city to take back old electronics once consumers no longer want them. And there are already some companies, like Dell and Hewlett-Packard, that are pursing this type of recycling program. But with the change that’s coming next year, we had better get an effective recycling plans in place across the nation quickly, or else we are going to create a massive electronic trash problem that we’ll be dealing with for years to come.

Richard Comerford