The End of All Culture; The Death of America

[Xose Lucero]

America faces a crisis greater than any our republic has faced before. This danger, underreported by the media, looms closer and closer while the very government organizations that should protect us instead wallow in disorganized chaos, wasting time and money. We, as a people, are poised on the razor's edge, between economic collapse and a new Dark Age of our own making. I first became aware of this impending disaster through the brave reporting of the Washington Post in their article The Night The TVs Go Out. In short: in a year and a half, analog television will cease and TVs that rely exclusively on "rabbit ears" to receive broadcasts will go black forever (except if you have a VCR or DVD player) and only TVs with satellite service, or digital cable, or basic analog cable (for another three years) will work.

Terrible, I know. I'm just as scurred as you are. Wait a minute. No, I'm not. I'm a hulked-out ball of rage. What is this fear-mongering crap?

According to the article, 70 million TVs will be affected. Industry statistics show that most of these are secondary sets in the guest rooms and garages of homes with one or more unaffected TVs. Of the remaining minority, most can make the changeover with a simple converter box. Of the few that can't, they're guaranteed to be old-ass and due for replacement anyway, a small number even assuming none of them break before 2009.

And at the end of all that: it's TV. This isn't the phone system going out. It's not water and power going offline for millions of citizens. It's fucking TV. It's one tiny facet of one single form of entertainment, half of which is the sewage outflow from Hollywood and the other half of which is the sewage outflow from Madison Avenue.

"If we don't do a better job of planning, we'll have one of the biggest outrages Congress has ever seen," Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein told the Senate Special Committee on Aging last week. "This is a huge market opportunity, but also an opportunity for a huge disaster."

It was nice of the Senate Special Committee on Aging to take time out from fillibustering subsidies for Geritol farmers, or whatever the hell they do, to listen to Mr. Adelstein's dire pronouncement. Sounds pretty damn dire too. The biggest outrage Congress has ever seen. Really? Worse than Black Friday? Worse than Teapot Dome? Worse than Watergate or the Pentagon Papers? Worse than the McCarthy hearings, the savings and loan scandal, Iran-Contra, the Great Depression, and the Civil War? Worse than the OJ Trial?

And it's not just an outrage, it's a huge disaster. A huge disaster is when a city that was built below sea level floods, then gets rebuilt below sea level. When a few people miss out on the season finale of Ugly Betty, technically that's known as a "shrug".

Hard-to-reach demographics like elderly, rural or non-English-speaking viewers are at the highest risk of losing the over-the-air signals they rely on

Ah, yes. Among the small number of TVs affected, surely some belong to the Elderly, the Rural, and the Non-English. We wouldn't want our parents and grandparents to miss out on QVC and Lawrence Welk repeats. What stone-hearted monster would want the Rural salt of the earth to miss out on all the New York and Los Angeles sitcoms that mock the Rural salt of the earth? And it would be downright culturally insensitive to want to rob non-English speakers of all the English-language programming they watch, uncomprehending but enjoying the color and motion.

Congress allocated $1.5 billion to the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration to provide coupons for consumers to purchase digital-to-analog converter boxes. Starting in January, each household can request up to two $40 coupons toward a converter box.

What the shit is this shit? They're going to spend my tax money to upgrade people's TVs? Are they going to give me two goddamned $40 coupons to buy books? Are they even going to consider the income level of these people? How about this: if you need your TV so bad that the government has to bail you out, why don't you just not eat out for a month and use that $80 to buy a converter? Oh, wait, that would require a shred of discipline, the ability to delay gratification, lack of an undeserved sense of entitlement, and something other than a victim complex. I guess I answered my own question.

If [the tiny number of people for whom analog broadcast TV represents their only TV service] wake up next winter to a blank TV screen, broadcasters run the risk of losing advertising dollars.

1) Again, only a very small number of people have no option other than analog TV service. 2) If they still don't have cable or even a TV that can be upgraded they either don't have much money to spend on advertised products or they don't watch much TV (and therefore advertising) anyway. 3) Boo-fucking-hoo. If we don't go shopping the terrorists win.

"The last thing we want is some sort of consumer revolt in 2009 due to lack of information," said Dennis Wharton, spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters.

Leaving aside the fact that if you view people as "consumers" you are a douchebag of the first water, if our culture is so fucked that lack of TV service to a small proportion of the population will result in a revolt, I can't help but think maybe it's about time.

The finger-pointing could get nasty if the transition doesn't go smoothly, especially since the cut-over date is just after the presidential election, Mattey said. "Will one party be blaming the other for dropping the ball?"

If you don't know the answer to that, kill yourself. I swear, one of these days I'm going to wake up and just go freegan.

Die, TV, die.

[mrmontie]

my dad isnt going to be a fan of this. hes a good ol boy redneck. who has two houses side by side and probably about 20 tvs between them. because it would be unpossible to miss part of the nascar race while walking from the garage to the house.

He has more wires buried on his property than i'd care to count. half of his tvs are on the same illegal cable that the cable guy just decided to hook him up with a few years ago unbidden. considering how many times the line is split, he gets an amazing picture.

the other half of his tvs still have the UHF and VHF knobs on them. he may still be the only guy within a ten mile radius that has aerials.

of course he has the money to buy a plasma tv to replace every one of them, but would never consider buying a new tv. it would offend his southern jesus fearing raising.

more specific to your post, i think the real problem that the country might face is that these people (few though they might be) will be denied their opium. and who knows what they might do when they arent doing nothing constantly. maybe they'll write the great american novel and volunteer at soup kitchens. or maybe they'll take to the tower and bring down as many people as possible.

TV is so pervasive at times in our culture that it baffles and enrages me. now when i'm sitting in airport terminals (the very thought honestly almost makes me tremble with rage, but thats another rant) i get to hear the tvs above me blaring at top volume. and they never seem to have accessible volume controls. Hi, i dont want to be listening to this right now, thank you. turn this shit off. I think this is part of the reason that almost everyone has portable media players now. i have to crank my zen up to drown this crap out. i actually travel with my giant can headphones if the trip is going to be longer than a couple of hours so that i can better drown crap like this out.

When my little sister was near death on new years eve of 98 from a massive brain hemorrhage, some jackass had the tv in the waiting room blaring. No thank you. I suppose to be fair, some people feel they need to be distracted from the horror that is going on. Personally I think thats being dishonest to life. when something terrible like that is happening, its rather unjust not to face it for what it is. if i were lying there dying on my sickbed, i wouldnt want a bunch of people standing over me wailing, but i certainly wouldnt want them to be watching Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader either.

Hell, i dont want anyone to watch that ever, much less while i'm dying in the next room. but hopefully you get my point.

I dont really get on board with most magazines, but they are a time honored tradition for waiting rooms, and will do just fine for me, thank you very much. or i'll bust out my pocket notebook if i was lucky enough to bring it with me and hammer out a character or make some notes on something i'm working on. I just dont think we need a tv in every dresser drawer.

[Hank Harwell]

What makes the whole thing especially sad to me is that the decision to convert to HD has been coming. We have known for what, three, five years now? That should have been plenty of time to save the money to but a new set if you simply HAD to have your TV.

Me, I'm watching less, although the Big Three networks are doing a better job of providing programs that appeal to me, and USA Network has others that I enjoy.

Most of the time, though lately, I've been sitting in my reading corner (angled strategically with no view of the screen).

[Cameron Goble]

My dad bought a big screen HD-compatible TV about ten years ago, when the idea was just beginning to trickle into the mainstream consciousness. Hell, it was already hot in Japan -- should be easy to adopt here, right?

The super-definition mojo was compatible with existing analog receivers, it rode on a subcarrier or something, and didn't *require* any new equipment on anybody's part. If you wanted to broadcast in high-def, you could certainly spend the money and upgrade, but in the meantime, your boring old analog signals would do just fine, for everybody. It didn't even need new spectrum. It just worked.

When the switch happened, my father's transition would be seamless. TV would just start looking better one day. He was so happy.

It turns out that my dad's fancy-pants TV is going to be utterly useless, because the FCC got lobbied into using a completely different standard than the rest of the world. (Again.) Sure, he can buy an HD adapter -- if he wants to look at normal resolution TV on his big screen the way he does now. Except he gets to pay more for it! (Again.)

The FCC created an artificial marketplace incentive, under lobbyist pressure, to force a gigantic splurge in the home electronics market. The reasoning goes that otherwise, nobody would want to buy a new HDTV if the old signals were good enough and kept working. Well, I'm not buying it. Probably ever. I can get my shows in DVD or via the Int4rwebz, kthnxbye. TV is deader than print.

The cable/satcom industries are the real winners here, because they don't have to change over to HD, though they're doing it anyway, which indicates the broadcast market would have done so too if it hadn't been mandated. This is a hammer blow to broadcast TV. Everyone else, especially early adopters, your tax dollars are happily giving you the finger.

[Ruminator]

I believe taht the cable/satcom industries have to convert to HD by 2012 or somesuch...

[Vulcan Stev]

So we lose the Big Three Networks. *yawn*, Wake me when they actually start airing something other than "So You Think You Can Dance with America's Next Top Model Lost on Desert Island: Extreme Edition"

[Kenneth Newquist]

Given the number of people clamoring to legislate every aspect of video distribution (it's for the children, don't you know?), I can't help but feel a little bit of glee at the thought of an entirely different set of regulations coming back to bite them in the ass.

Poetic justice and all that.

Me? Well, it just gives me a good excuse to get a new TV. The one we have was purchase in about 1998, and I wouldn't mind a shiny new HD picture to go along with my 360... :)

[Cameron Goble]

That's the most compelling reason I've read so far to get an HD TV.

Now I need to next-gen console to go with it, and some games. :)

[matholwch]

What is this 'TV' of which you speak?

I am lucky enough to work away from home four days a week with only my BBC-tuned radio for company - sheer bliss. When I get home my technophile wife and kids are draining the national grid to ensure their digital experience is undiminsihed by their moving from room to room.

So far I have managed to hold out and refused to have a screen in the bathroom. Where else am I to read in peace?

When I am home I watch an average of two hours of TV per weekend (BBC News 24 and Michael Palin's latest Travelogue on Eastern Europe).

Strangely, being an old man brought up in the European Dark Ages (the 1960's), I am always capable of finding something to do that does not involve any item powered by electricity. My children have done school projects on this Cro-Magnon who shambles in and out of their house (but their Teachers refused to believe I actually exist).

Personally I can only think that if both the analogue and digital signals inexplicably failed it could only improve the lot of mankind.

[debby]

If culture of America dies . . . .we all will die. . .It is a developped country and very potent in culture as well sympathy words

[matholwch]

Somehow I really doubt this. America did not invent culture, nor are we outside America entirely dependent upon it.

[Charlie]

Wait... are we talking culture as in The Arts? Or as in molds and bacteria and petri dishes?

Personally I think, in America, we've successfully merged the these things...

What?

... I'm jus' sayin'

[Deidzoeb]

There was some artist about 2-3 years back, I think in New York state, who used viruses in some visual arts stuff, and got arrested for terroristishness. I don't remember what came of it. He was trying to make a political statement and had supposedly purchased all the viruses legally. Anyway, he literally merged cultures (microscopic stuff in petri dishes) with culture (The Arts).