A congressional committee has determined that most people don’t know about the February 2009 transition to Digital television (DTV).
In the nightmarish scenario they seem to be presenting, old people and poor people will be shocked to wake up on February 18, 2009 (which will go down in history as DTV-day) to find that their TV antenna no longer picks up any channels. Frustrated, these demographics will take to the streets, looting and pillaging in protest of their lost airwaves. The country will descend into anarchy as makeshift broadcast centers are erected to fill the void left by analog UHF, giving the people a strong unregulated voice in combination with a lack of anything better to do. The first ‘War of the Signals’ will take place in 2012, after tensions between the rich, gadget-centric DTV watchers and the poor, yet numerous ‘Analoggers’ reach a terrible peak. The nation will be in ruins.
Some less optimistic futurists, however, believe that perhaps these people will be warned by friends and family early enough that they might buy a new TV and switch to cable television service (or worse: use their government issued coupons to get a free DTV converter box) before the fateful day arrives. This reporter shudders with the thought.
Articles RSS