As widely expected, the U.S. House of Representatives approved moving the long-ago-set date for the TV digital transition, from February 17th to June 12th, by a 264 to 158 vote. (We’d have put this up earlier, but you’d pretty much had to have been under a rock not to hear about it on Wednesday afternoon.)
The bill has already been approved by the U.S. Senate, and unlike an earlier House attempt, did not require a 2/3rds vote to pass…so it heads directly for the desk of President Barack Obama.
Obama’s transition team came up with the idea of the nearly four-month delay in the February date, and the president is expected to sign the bill into law this week.
There are still things to do: among them, the FCC will have to create rules to implement the new transition date. Meanwhile, hundreds of stations are filing to leave analog behind on the original date, February 17th.
We’re tired, and resting, so we’ll have an article going into more detail sometime later today…
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