What Digital Transition ??

With less than 24 hours to go until the digital transition takes place it seems that some people are still not ready for the big change.

According to a report today on MSNBC (which follows similar reports on the other networks) as many as four million Americans are not ready for the digital switch and of those as many as one million remain somehow unaware that any sort of change is taking place.

I must admit to being somewhat stunned by this news, especially the idea that a million people who regularly watch TV could possibly be unaware the change is happening (I am assuming here to be unprepared you have to own a TV set to be unprepared with).

As to the other three million, I don’t really get that either. According to the reports it is not the elderly who are unprepared, indeed they are amoung the most ready. The big groups cited in news reports are the poor and those who do not speak English.

Obviously these factors are something of a barrier but the government coupons make the DTV boxes basically free and living in an area with large numbers of non English speakers I can attest to the fact that every station, regardless of language, has been talking about this switch for months.

Indeed, even if the entire four million in the unprepared group are in the poor or non English speaking category that still means that many times that number in the same groups ARE ready, so being poor didn’t seem to stop them.