Thread: Opinion - Transition to DTV needs more time

Transition to DTV needs more time
by U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes
Mr. Lovell’s suggestion that this legislation will cause the border to “lag behindâ€

by David Karlsruher
The issue of the digital switch is about the Spanish language stations selling advertising based on their assumed numbers of Mexican listeners. It’s an argument over corporate profits, not safety. If you can take that to Congress and win your argument, then so be it – good for you.

Posted on August 5, 2008
Dear Congressman Reyes,

I think you are full of it.

I think you that you think we are stupid.

The issue of the digital switch is about the Spanish language stations selling advertising based on their assumed numbers of Mexican listeners. In El Paso they know that the majority of their viewers live in Juarez [Mexico] and will not buy any kind of device to enhance their television so that they can see the new digital signal.

The Spanish language stations sell most of their advertising in El Paso based on numbers they give to potential advertisers detailing how many people in Juarez they think are watching. If a barrier is put up between the Mexican audience and the American stations, the U.S.-based Spanish language stations will lose MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!!!

Why should borders stations not have to compete on an even field of play seeing as how the airwaves are not of a model of "free market capitalism," but governed and owned by the United States Government. FCC regulates the industry and should regulate it equally the same way the SEC, FEC or FAA does.

Requiring some stations to do one thing while others are required to do nothing isn't "fair" as you liberals so often like to point out about American society and government. I checked and didn’t see any hefty payments from the broadcast world to your campaign fund in order to get you to start throwing your democrat ideals out the window.

Maybe you forgot the process. They put money in your campaign bucket and then you carry their water. If you carry their water without collecting their money first you will find that they forget their wallet when you show up with the water. And if you’re just carrying people’s water around for free, we need to have a talk about how this whole Washington thing works.

I’m most perplexed at your claim that millions of poor border based Spanish speakers won’t get emergency notifications from the Emergency Alert System (EAS). What are we going to do about the people who choose not to have a TV or a radio and can not receive EAS warnings digitally or otherwise? Where is the public awareness campaign requiring each and every citizen to have a working television or radio on at all times just in case there is an EAS warning issued?

I don’t buy the EAS system excuse at all. As recently as 2007 Spanish language stations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area weren’t even showing the EAS alerts. [link] Where’s the outrage?

The fact that Spanish speaking TV watchers on the border didn’t know about the change is a problem those very Spanish language stations could have begun working on years ago. After all, those Spanish language stations are the exact place those border folks go to get their news! All they had to do was tell them, “hey, save your pennies because we are switching over to a digital signal in five years.â€