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The Digital Switch: Why Athens May Lose Broadcast TV In 2009

by Chris Taylor
02/13/2008

You’ve probably heard this sentence uttered a lot recently: ‘TV is going digital in 2009.’ You might have heard whispers of HDTV, and rumors of ‘digital tuners required,’ but what you probably haven’t heard is what all of this means and how it’s going to affect you, the viewer. Hopefully by the time you’ve finished reading this article, you’ll know what the ‘digital switch’ is, and how it affects you.

To start, I’m going to tell you which viewers this law is going to affect so you don’t have to keep reading if you aren’t interested. If you have cable, satellite, new-fangled fiber-optic TV, or if you get all your shows online, this law in no way affects your daily viewing!

There. Got that out of the way. So who does it affect? The law is only really relevant to people who get their TV for free, over-the-air, either with ‘rabbit ears’ on top of the TV set, or an antenna on the roof of their home.

What ‘tv going digital’ means is that over-the-air broadcasts from high power (mostly major network affiliate channels) stations, which are by and large already broadcast in both analog and digital formats, will now only be broadcast digitally. The old analog bandwidth will be reallocated to other uses (cell phones, internet, radio, perhaps).

But wait a second. What’s the difference between analog TV and digital TV? Basically, analog broadcasts go farther away from the station, reaching more homes in more remote places, but often look and sound kind of ‘snowy,’ and digital broadcasts, if you get them, are either 100% clear or not there at all.

If you were reading closely, you might have noticed that I said ‘if you get them.’ You heard me right: as of 2009, if things do not change, a very large portion of this country will no longer receive any over-the-air television broadcasts. And unfortunately for you, dear reader, that includes our beloved Athens, Georgia. I reiterate: unless something major happens, as of 2009, you won’t be able to get free, over-the-air TV in Athens.

You might be asking yourself questions like, ‘Is that even legal?’ or ‘How do you know this?’ and things of that nature. The answer to the first question, unfortunately, is, yes, it is legal to leave an area blank on the TV map. The answer to the second is I’ve run my own tests and I’ve got independent verification via a well-respected and very useful website.

If you go to Antenna Web, you can put in your exact location and find out which channels you currently get over the air, whether or not they’re available to you digitally, and what kind of antenna you’d need in order to get those channels.

Again, if you’re using cable, satellite, or some other form of TV, you probably don’t care about any of this. But for those of you who like the idea of not paying for your favorite shows, this is a major concern. If you’re worried about the switch and the problems it poses, do something about it!

You could contact Cox, Disney, NBC Universal, or whoever else you think might be able to influence the powers that be in these issues. Generally the local station affiliates are responsible for their own broadcast strength, so contacting WXIA, WSB, and WAGA would be effective. Your local congressman, Paul Broun, might also be worth a shot. Here are some links you might want to look at:

Representative Paul Broun’s website
WSB-TV(ABC)
WAGA(Fox)
WXIA (NBC)