Digital TV Facts: The Latest

Cable TV customers who have not upgraded to digital service would nonetheless enjoy continued access to local stations, under a plan circulated by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

Without federal action, local channels could disappear from the television screens of some analog cable subscribers following the switchoff of analog TV broadcasts on February 17, 2009. While cable companies have proposed their own remedies to this pressing problem, the issue has long remained on the back burner for regulators.

If Martin’s plan is approved by the commission, cable systems will carry required local stations in both digital and analog form starting in early 2009, Ted Hearn of Multichannel News reports. Subscribers to traditional analog cable service would be able to receive local channels as they do today. Unless regulators act, some cable customers who own conventional analog television sets will need to get digital cable boxes for local-channel access.
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