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Switch To Digital TV Leaves Some Viewers Outside The Box

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 19, 2008

If you can't find your government and education channels on your TV, you're probably among the Bright House customers left behind in its channel realignment last month.

Unless you have a digital-ready TV or the right brand of converter box, you can no longer watch your local government boards in action.

There is a possibility the change won't stick. A federal judge in Michigan has temporarily prohibited another cable company, Comcast, from making a similar move. She correctly found it was not in the public interest to deprive some subscribers of easy access to government channels.

Tampa is making a similar legal argument here. The reasonable complaint is that the minimum offer to every cable subscriber should include the ability to watch the government, education and public-access channels.

Instead of joining the lawsuit, Hillsborough County commissioners worked out a deal with Bright House to equip the TVs at County Center with free converter boxes. The deal, approved last week, also gives the county $150,000 in free TV advertising over two years.

The only commissioner voting against the arrangement was Rose Ferlita, who observed, "It's a matter of people looking at this like we got hush money to do what we want to do, and they have to pay the buck to continue watching us protect their community."
Bright House is offering consumers the converter boxes for $1 per month per box. A Bright House representative told commissioners the company is hearing few complaints.

The problem is not so much the cost as the reality that many people won't go to the trouble of asking for another piece of equipment; they'll just quit watching their city council, school board and county commission meetings.

Ferlita is right that the perception is that Hillsborough County government looked out for itself at the expense of the public, and that "the perception stinks."

Still, some good video news is beaming in.

Hillsborough County currently offers streaming video of live commission meetings via the Internet. And county staff is reviewing bids from private vendors to make the entire archive of recorded meetings available for Internet viewing. Tammy Peralta, Hillsborough Television station manager, says the videos will be linked to written transcripts so a viewer can search by key words to find the part of the meeting they want to see.

The commission should approve this investment, which would be extremely helpful to the public.

Another improvement is coming within a few months. Bright House will provide video on demand for government channels. Viewers with up-to-date equipment soon will be able to access public meetings through their TV sets, at no extra cost to either taxpayers or customers.

Those are the sort of advances touted by Rep. Trey Traviesa of Tampa, who championed legislation that allows a statewide franchise for cable providers but now won't return calls to discuss it. The change promotes competition, but it should have required that companies using public rights of way for cable must offer government and education channels in the lower tiers where they are easy to find.

For viewers still receiving broadcast TV, a bigger change is coming in 13 months. All broadcasts nationwide will switch to digital. That means if you don't have a digital converter box for your old TV, you will pick up nothing through rabbit-ear sets.

The federal government is providing $40 coupons that will cover about half the cost of a converter box, first-come, first-served. To request a coupon, call (888) DTV-2009 or use the Internet site dtv2009.gov.

These boxes will only help with through-the-air signals and won't access the 600 channels where Bright House has relegated government, education and public-access stations.

If you don't think you need a cable box, consider your battery-operated emergency TV. If it lacks a digital tuner, it won't work after Feb. 17, 2009. You'll need a converter box for it, too.

Digital signals carry more information and are a big improvement, but as with local cable competition, both quality and inequality have increased.

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