Consumer Protection In The News

Signal switch due in ’09

Call it the return of the Year 2000 bug. Or the end of television as we know it.

Some even call it the latest government conspiracy.

On Feb. 17, 2009, television sets operating with rabbit ears and rooftop antennas are slated to go blank. That’s when television broadcasts are switching completely from analog signals to digital. Consumers with cable or another pay service will not be affected, executives say.

While some predict a possible panic when viewers without digital signals suddenly stare into blank screens while watching ‘‘Survivor” or ‘‘American Idol,” businesses and industry groups in Maryland and other states are working to ensure that won’t happen to too many people. About 250,000 households in Maryland and 13 million nationally get television strictly through analog sets, according to the Arlington, Va., trade group Consumer Electronics Association.

The countdown is on. In fact, a clock noting that there are 362 days until the ‘‘end of analog broadcasts” — reminiscent of the days prior to Y2K — was on at least two federal Internet sites Thursday.

Stores such as Best Buy and Circuit City have begun selling converter boxes. And the federal government this week started sending out $40 coupons to help people buy those boxes.

The devices have not been leaping off the shelves at Best Buy on Shady Grove Road in Gaithersburg since the store began selling them in early February, but that could change soon, said Mike Greene, customer experience manager at the store. The boxes, manufactured by Insignia, a Best Buy brand, retail for $59.99.

‘‘I expect it to pick up when people get their coupons,” Greene said.

A recently released survey conducted last fall by ‘‘secret shoppers” with the Maryland Public Interest Research Group and affiliates found that sales clerks at Circuit City, RadioShack, Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and other retailers in 10 states, including Maryland, often gave customers inaccurate information about the conversion. In the Maryland stores, about half steered customers to higher-priced items such as television sets with digital tuners, compared with 20 percent nationally, when all they needed was a converter box, according to the survey.

Retail executives say they have upgraded employee training and engaged in more extensive education campaigns about the issue since last year.

Best Buy began educating consumers with in-store brochures and online information two years ago. In October, Best Buy was the first electronics retailer to pull all analog tuner products from store shelves, executives said. The company even provides a hotline with bilingual representatives.

‘‘We take our role as a trusted source of information very seriously,” Mike Vitelli, senior vice president of electronics for Best Buy, said in a statement. ‘‘We are committed to do whatever we can to help customers find a solution that meets their specific needs.”

Executives with Circuit City, RadioShack and other retailers have issued similar comments.

Consumer awareness of the transition has grown by 80 percent in the past two years, thanks to efforts by trade groups, the government and businesses, according to a survey released earlier this month by the Consumer Electronics Association.

Dates back to 1990s

The seeds of the digital transition were sown more than a decade ago. Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which set a deadline of 2006 for the transition. Another act of Congress — the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 — delayed the deadline to next year.

One reason given for the change was to clear the airwaves to allow more emergency communications for police, fire and rescue departments, federal officials said in a news release. But other parts of the spectrum are being auctioned off to private telecommunications and cell phone companies to boost broadband Internet and telephone capacity for potentially billions of dollars.

Consumers will also enjoy sharper pictures under digital, while broadcasters can offer more channels for programming, federal officials said.

Congress should have saved more of the public airwaves for community broadcasting and community-sponsored wireless networks, the Maryland PIRG report says.

‘‘Instead, Congress reclaimed only a small portion of the unused airwaves and let broadcasters keep the rest — suddenly worth much more because digital signals take up less space — at no charge,” the report says. ‘‘This stands as one of the largest public giveaways in the history of the nation ... Just the small amount of spectrum reclaimed by the government and being auctioned off is worth an estimated $10 [billion] to $20 billion.”

Cable companies and other pay-television services should add customers and retailers will likely boost sales in the process, according to a report by New York financial research firm Sanford T. Bernstein & Co. Some 1.4 million U.S. households will switch from antennas to pay television services because of the transition, while the market for new televisions is about $1.7 billion and $1.4 billion for converter boxes, the report says.

The federal government set aside $1.5 billion for the converter-box coupon program. About 5 million of the estimated 33.5 million available coupons have been requested since the program started Jan. 1, according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the U.S. Department of Commerce agency running the program.

In some cases, consumers may need to get not just a converter box, but a new antenna. The Consumer Electronics Association and the National Association of Broadcasters this week unveiled AntennaWeb.org, an online antenna mapping program to help determine what antenna to use.

Johanna Neumann, a policy advocate for Maryland PIRG in Baltimore, said retailers need to properly warn consumers of the changes and need for converter boxes on analog television sets they still sell. The federal government should also enforce penalties against retailers that mislead consumers to sell them unnecessary equipment, she said.

Converter box coupons

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is offering people who use television antennas up to two $40 coupons — as supplies last — to help pay for converter boxes. Coupons, which expire 90 days after they are mailed, may be requested the following ways:

Phone: 888-388-2009

Online: www.dtv2009.gov

Mail: TV Converter Box Coupon Program, P.O. Box 2000, Portland, OR 97208-2000

Fax: 877-388-4632

Other resources:

National Association of Broadcasters, www.dtvanswers.com

Federal Communications Commission, www.dtv.gov

DTV Transition Coalition, www.dtvtransition.org

National Cable and Telecommunications Association, www.getreadyfordigitaltv.com

Consumer Electronics Association and National Association of Broadcasters antenna use site, www.antennaweb.org

Maryland Public Interest Research Group, www.marylandpirg.org

Best Buy digital conversion hot line, 877-BBY-DTV9