The prospect that as many as 4.5 million households could see their TV screens go dark is reason enough for Congress to hit the pause button on the nation's Feb. 17 switch to all-digital television broadcasts.
In the Philadelphia region, nearly 100,000 homes could be left without a picture because they still lack TVs equipped to receive digital signals.
President-elect Barack Obama has joined Consumers Union and key congressional leaders in urging a delay to allow these viewers to install converter boxes or sign up for cable or satellite TV service. That makes good sense, especially since the solution to the problem could be a delay of only a matter of months.
Nearly eight million households have yet to buy the converters or switch to pay-TV providers who will unscramble digital broadcasts for viewing on older, analog sets. More than half won't make the deadline, experts say. That's partly consumers' fault, but Washington shares a good deal of the blame.
The federal program offering $40 coupons (
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) to offset the cost of TV converter boxes has given out all of its coupons. There are one million people on a waiting list that could grow to five million, so it's clear more time and federal funds will be needed.
Even with the converters, some TV viewers in distant areas won't receive all the channels they view now unless they also upgrade their antennas. At the least, they deserve more time to figure out how to pay that cost.
When Congress ordered the digital switch in 2005, consumer advocates predicted that the nation would not be ready in time. They're proving to have been right. But not by all that much, since a remarkable 93 percent of households have at least one set that's digital-ready.
As the deadline approaches, broadcasters naturally are impatient to make the switch. They're eager to see a return on their billion-dollar investments in high-quality digital technology and programming. But TV executives could find that a delay works in their best interest, providing that the eventual switch occurs when more households can receive the digital signal.
Flipping the switch only a few weeks from now, though, could cost broadcasters millions of viewers. And what media outlet these days can afford to lose any customers?
The case against a delay in the digital switch is that it's human nature for some people to fight a deadline. Were the changeover set for a date years from now, some households still wouldn't be ready.
Timing is everything, though. The fact that the planned digital transition comes amid the nation's worst recession in decades makes the case for a delay even more compelling.
The new president and Congress need to devote their full attention to solving the nation's fiscal woes without the distraction of the digital TV switch. And Americans who look to their televisions for news of the economic recovery effort - as well as other updates, including weather warnings - shouldn't have to worry their TVs will go blank.