Digital Bull

Neon Memes • At the risk of being branded a Luddite, I deplore the upcoming transition in U.S. television transmissions from analog to digital. That transition, which becomes final on February 17, strikes me as a gigantic boondoggle. In it, Washington will profit from auctioning off vacated white-space frequencies, and the electronics industry will enjoy an Information Age upgrade to planned obsolescence―governmentally mandated obsolescence. Getting shafted in the shuffle, as usual: regular Joes and Janes disinclined to drop big bucks on all-new hardware, cable or satellite. Over Christmas, for instance, my brother, Brad, attached my parents' long-suffering but still-functional TV both to a converter box and to a multidirectional indoor antenna. (The former cost $9.87 plus tax with the Department of Commerce's $40 coupon/card, but the latter totaled $49.96 before tax. Scarcely chump change to retirees on a fixed income.) Instantly, the broadcast of KTVI―whose signal has always stunk in my South Side bungalow, let alone rural Ste. Genevieve, Mo.―shone crisp and clear. However, both KMOV and KETC just as instantly vanished. Lovely. In this brave new digital world, KETC supposedly boasts not only a primary channel but also a trio of subchannels. "Multicasting," unfortunately, means zilch without reception. ―Bryan A. Hollerbach, Managing Editor