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Impressive digital TV consumer ed plan…with one small kink

May 3rd, 2006

The obligation to inform consumers about the digital TV transition appears to have been taken to heart in the working draft of the Senate telecom bill. Plans for mandatory labels on analog TV sets, consumer education and outreach, toll-free hotlines—quite extensive, really. (Another mandate: A digital-TV web site. If you can imagine such a thing.) Color me impressed.

Broadcasters would even be required to air PSAs twice daily, warning viewers of the cutover to digital TV. When will the announcements be shown?

Each day from July 17, 2009, through February 17, 2009…

So, if I read the schedule right, the commercials will commence after analog broadcasts have ceased (how will anyone see them?), and will run backwards for five months .

OK, so it is a draft…

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