I love me some Google News (Digital Divide Article)

My group decided to discuss the digital divide in the transition from analogue to digital TV in class last week. In order to find an article to post for this blog I jumped into Google's News feature and typed digital divide, and surprise, surprise: an article about the very same thing was the first hit.

The article I found was from the Palm Beach Post. The article talked about the transition to digital in the West Palm area of Florida. They, like us in Madison, are among the most prepared areas for the switch, with only 3% of households not owning converter boxes. That might seem great, but that's approximately 22,000 households that would lose service on the newly extended switch over date of June 12.

The article went on to say that the people in that 3% were mostly the ones who would be hurt by the transition: the elderly and people in rural communities.

The article then took a broader look at the conversion. Approximately 6 million households still need to buy the $40 converter boxes before the switch. The government has already outspent its $1.34 billion budget for converter box coupons, leaving people waiting in line. That clearly was a major factor in the delay.

The other side of the issue is that the broadcast companies are pushing to switch over before the new deadline. Keeping both an analogue and digital signal running is extremely expensive, and that is added to the over $500,000 cost of installing an all new digital line.

The final issue the article discussed was that those who bought the converter boxes still found themselves spending more money. They needed new, difficult to install antenna in order to receive the digital signals, because the old rabbit ears were not strong enough to get the signal. Many people in the West Palm community found themselves with static or blank channels, among an array of other problems.

All in all the digital conversion is creating a large digital divide, not just for those without a converter box, but also for those without the technical know how to set up their new antenna or the funds to buy one.

The full article can be found here.