Friday, June 10, 2005

Digital TV deadlines moved up

All midsize televisions should be capable of receiving digital, analog signals by March 1.

By David Pace / Associated Press

Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators on Thursday moved up the deadlines for manufacturers to make popular, midsize television sets capable of receiving digital signals.

Digital, TV's next-generation technology, provides sharper images and more programming options.

The Federal Communications Commission voted 4-0 to require that all medium-sized televisions, those with screens from 25 to 36 inches, are capable of receiving digital and traditional analog signals by March 1, four months earlier than the commission had decreed three years ago. Regulators also retained a requirement that half of all new midsize televisions have the capability by July 1.

The commission also proposed moving the deadline for all small TVs -- those 13 to 24 inches -- to have digital tuners to the end of 2006, rather than the July 1, 2007, deadline the regulators set in 2002. That proposal will be voted on later, after a period of public comment.

The lack of digital-capable television sets has been a major impediment to Congress' tentative deadline of December 2006 to complete the transition from traditional analog TV signals to digital. The 1997 law setting that deadline permits it to be extended in any market until 85 percent of the homes have a digital TV.

"We need to push the transition to its conclusion as expeditiously as possible," said Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy.

The Consumer Electronics Association and Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition argued that the transition to digital television has actually been slowed by having a July 1 deadline for half the medium-sized TVs to have digital capability.

They said retailers, expecting consumers to buy more non-digital televisions because they're less expensive, have been ordering more of those increasingly scarce models and less of the digital-ready models.