I am not sure what is behind the proposed delay the DTV transition. Millions will be without TV for a while while they make the transition So what? Will people really wither and die in large numbers if they miss Oprah for a day or two? Will delaying really get more people to transition?
I (heart) Obama, but it sucks to see him expend precious first-hundred-days political capital — and money — on this self-correcting problem. Leaving the schedules as is would have an economic perk: it would make the remaining 6 million households to buy converters or take the opportunity to upgrade their TVs — a nice boost infusion to consumer electronics retailers.
That said, if we are going to make them switch, there is probably a better way to go about it.
But first, some key observations:
- People tend to act reactively. They won’t act until they sense a problem, which means further delays will not fully solve the problem.
- Reaching everyone with traditional ads for the switchover are extremely expensive, and of limited efficacy. (See point 1.)
- Who says we have to change cold turkey? Why not pull it off in stages?
Here is the design to steal: Give stragglers increasingly bitter tastes of what will happen if they don’t switch. Disable analog broadcast of regular programming, showing instead a 10-minute public-service infomercial loop on all analog channels, with a phone number and website for more information.
The five week schedule might look like this:
- Warning shot: Disable analog broadcasts for one hour next week during a low viewing period, say Monday 8-9 am. This will make headlines and get people talking. Publish the schedule of analog brown-outs that every newscaster across the country will read.
- Give people a week to switch, then fire the second warning shot: Disable analog for 3 hours on a Saturday morning with the same message on how to transition.
- Third warning shot a week later: Disable analog for 4 hours on a Sunday evening.
- Fourth warning shot: Disable analog from 6-11 on a Monday night.
- Fifth warning shot: Disable analog from 6-11 on a Thursday night.
Here is an even bolder approach:
- Designate a Thursdays as no analog programming day. Every week, turn off analog broadcasts for the whole day.
Two other refinements to the idea:
- In additional to the tough love, station owners could sell advertising between replays of the public-service infomercial, but only to advertisers providing products and services involved in the transition.
- If there is a local or national emergency, stations would be allowed to start re-broadcasting in analog for the public safety.
Of course this will be painful for viewers and advertisers. But it will be way less painful than the cold-turkey approach.
