So where do things move from there?.
Government Influences.
The strongest push to place digital television in the mainstream has come from the government, mainly the FCC and Congress. Like was mentioned before, the government set down mandates to try and force television into the viewing public. The original plan called for a portion of households to have digital ready televisions in place and digital transmissions be the standard broadcast by the mid-2000's (Merline). A few obstacles block that plan of action, so recently new plans for digital televisions have been created by the FCC. In early 2002, FCC Chairman Michael Powell announced a now wide-reaching voluntary plan in which television manufacturers may soon begin to include digital tuners in their new sets and many cable operators agreed to carry up to five digital broadcast signals (Halonen). Also, the Big 4 over-the-air broadcasters, which include ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX, would agree as well to offer at least a portion of their primetime schedule in digital beginning around the 2003 season. Which is quite surprising considering that in 2001 three of the Big 4 defected from the NAB citing the digital television transition ad the main reason (Mermigas). Finally the same plan called upon satellite operators to carry digital programming services as well. In August, the FCC decided that almost all new television sets will roll out in 2007 with digital tuners and it begins with the larger sets. According to this mandate, sets with a screen of at least 36 inches must have between 2004 and 2005, the sets with screens of 25 to 35 inches will join sometime between 2005 and 2006, and finally smaller screens will have them around July 2007 (Whitney).
In recent months of this year, Congress has been putting more pressure on the FCC to move things along. A letter that was sent from Senate Commerce Committee Chair Fritz Hollings to the FCC, urging copy-protection rules for digital transmission and sayingProtection of digital broadcast content would serve the public interest while preserving lawful consumer use of that content.
