The US switchover to all-digital television broadcasting now looks ever more likely to be delayed. Senators are set to vote next week on a bill to move the changeover date from Feb. 17 to June 12.

As we reported recently, Barack Obama’s transition team had written to politicians urging a delay to allow consumers to take up a subsidy scheme for buying converter boxes. A technicality in spending laws left the scheme unable to cope with the high demand, which may have been boosted by cash-strapped consumers opting for a converter box rather than buying a new digital-ready TV.

John Rockefeller (pictured), the Democrat chairman of the Senate committee which covers the issue, says he has now persuaded leading Republicans to back a bill for a delay. New legislation is necessary for a delay because the Feb. 17 deadline is a legal requirement rather than a target.

In return for supporting the new bill, Republicans have won concessions including stations retaining the option to switch to all-digital broadcasts before the new deadline if they prefer. Stations would likely weigh up the cost savings of doing so against the potential drop in viewers among those who don’t yet have digital reception (or not on all their sets).

Where stations do switch off the analog signal before the revised deadline, those frequencies earmarked for services such as police and fire officials would be handed over immediately. The auctioning of remaining services for commercial use such as wireless Internet would likely be unaffected as regulators have yet to agree the details of the auction process anyway.

Henry Waxman, the chairman of the relevant committee in the House of Representatives, had been working on his own legislation for a delay. He’s put that process on hold to see what happens in the Senate.

The financial details of the bill haven’t been publicised yet, though Rockefeller says it would allow the Federal Communications Commission to build the costs of the delay into the auction process.

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Entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 11:29 am under Politics, Technology.

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