Hawaii switchover just days away

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The contiguous 48 states and Alaska are counting down to 2/17/09 (we think) for the DTV transition. But Hawaii, in an effort to avoid disrupting the nesting schedule in the local avian community, is counting down to Thursday. About 25K households in Hawaii rely solely on over-the-air broadcast service. Meanwhile, the latest stats from NTIA, from 1/7/09, show that 47.4M coupons have been requested, 43M have been mailed, 13.4M have expired, and 18.9M have been redeemed. About 950K individuals are on the waiting list.


RBR/TVBR observation: There is lots and lots of money available for converter boxes. The first thing that Congress needs to do is simply fix the language so NTIA can start mailing again. And if the program goes a little over budget, at this point, so what?