[opendtv] Re: Accurian DTV STB from Radio Shack
- From: "Stephen W. Long" <longsw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 18:44:09 -0400
Mark is getting at the thought I have had for some time - even if every
store (Radio Shack, Circuit City, Best Buy, ...) in the country had a large
stock of receivers in inventory, the stock was on display right out front
where it was easy to buy, and the price is cheap (sub $100 per receiver),
it is probably the case that there is not enough purchase time to get
enough units into homes prior to analog shutoff. Maybe Mark knows the
answer to the next question - given the consumer desire to buy a "must
have" product (say, DVD when it really took off), what is the largest
number of electronics units sold per year in recent history for "must have"
units? The point is, if analog cut off happens at the end of 2006 (the
McCain bill) or 2008 (other bills), is there any history what-so-ever to
show that the public will purchase 100 million receivers in 14 months or in
36 months? If you gave the receivers away on the street corners, it would
be almost impossible to get this many receivers deployed.
God help the poor souls working the switchboards at the every TV station in
the country over the cutoff weekend / week / month. The consumers that
never solved the blinking 12:00 on their VCR will never understand why
their TV sets don't work anymore.
I have to believe that the politicians will be forced to step in at the
last minute - voters will be too upset.
How is it also possible for stores to be able to continue to sell analog
only TV sets. The stores are full of them.
This is going to be ugly. To really put the icing on the cake, we should
shut off the analog transmitters on the Saturday midnight of Super Bowl
weekend. At nice touch don't you think? SWL
At 06:22 PM 10/9/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>
>>Broadcasters have a great opportunity here.
>>
>
>Sounds pretty good. I wonder if it'll work with a set-top antenna at my
>place.
>
>> And it's
>>still only the 4th quarter of 2005.
>>
>>
>
>Hmmm. Let's see. There are 110 million U.S. TV households. There are
>about 30 million TVs sold a year (analog and digital combined).
>Congress might -- within the next two weeks -- pass a law shutting down
>analog TV at the end of 2008.
>
>"Only"?
>
>TTFN,
>Mark
>
>>
>>
>
>
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