"Hard" Deadline For Digital Television Established
On February 8, 2006, President Bush signed into law the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 (the “DTV Act”). The DTV Act contains provisions relating to the nation’s transition from analog to digital television broadcasting. Most significantly, the DTV Act establishes February 18, 2009 as the “hard” deadline by which full-power television stations must cease broadcasting analog signals and commence broadcasting exclusively in digital format. Congress previously had set a target date of December 31, 2006 for the end of the transition from analog to digital broadcasting. That date, however, was flexible in that television stations could seek an extension of the deadline, and continue broadcasting in analog format, if less than 85 percent of the households in their respective market had access to the digital broadcast signals (e.g., owned a digital television set or a converter box that would make digital signals viewable on older analog television sets). The DTV Act eliminates the 85 percent extension criteria and establishes February 18, 2009 as the “hard” deadline for turning off analog television signals.
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