House defeats bill to delay digital TV transition

— -- House Republicans defeated a bill Wednesday that would have delayed the USA's transition to digital TV by four months to June 12 to give consumers more time to prepare.

Unless a new bill is passed quickly, the USA will become an all-digital TV market on Feb. 17, as originally planned. Digital TV, or DTV, offers clearer pictures, more choice and more channels to people who receive over-the-air TV signals. Cable and satellite TV customers aren't affected.

Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union, which supports a delay, says the House plans to vote again next week. "This was a bump in the road, but we expect this to pass overwhelmingly" next week, he said.

Trying to speed things along, the House opted to vote on the bill in a way that required a two-thirds majority to win. The 258-168 vote fell just short of that. The same bill defeated in the House was approved unanimously by the Senate last week. President Obama also supports a delay.

One big area of contention among lawmakers: What to do about the coupon program that offers consumers $40 vouchers to help offset the cost of buying a converter box, which turns digital signals into analog.

The program, conceived by Congress and overseen by the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, ran out of money in December. Since then, NTIA has been putting consumers on a waiting list.

There are more than 3.2 million people on the list; thousands of new names are added daily. Once a coupon request has been approved, it takes four to six weeks to process.

Analog TVs will go dark once the switch happens, and will stay that way until a converter box is hooked up. Boxes cost $40 to $70 each. Households are entitled to two coupons, which expire after 90 days.

According to NTIA, about 46.5 million coupons have been mailed out; 20.7 million have been redeemed. As many as 70 million TVs could be affected by the switch, broadcasters estimate.

Lawmakers have proposed adding $650 million for the DTV program, which began with $1.34 billion in funding. The allocation is included in the $850 billion stimulus package being considered by Congress.