As far as the "electricity" thing goes, you're kind of assuming that
1. Every single NTSC channel is going to stay on the air. They're not, large numbers of channels are going to switch off their NTSC channels anyway.
2. That there are no NTSC channels on air right now that are being transmitted without a sister ATSC channel. I know four local stations in my area are sharing a single ATSC multiplex, and will switch to at least two independent ATSC stations (WTCN, WTVX) once the transition is over. They're not saving any electricity by switching over.
I'm not saying that the delay isn't causing some money to be spent that otherwise wouldn't be, but, hey, if the aim is to save money, why bother with a digital transition in the first place? It'd be cheaper to cancel the whole thing and stick with NTSC. People who want the country to go digital should, perhaps, be a little quiet on the "This is costing us money!" front.
Actually, you are wrong about "It'd be cheaper to cancel the whole thing and stick with NTSC." It requires less power to cover the same viewing area with an ATSC signal than an NTSC signal.
So moving everything to ATSC would save $ over staying NTSC.
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As far as the "electricity" thing goes, you're kind of assuming that
1. Every single NTSC channel is going to stay on the air. They're not, large numbers of channels are going to switch off their NTSC channels anyway.
2. That there are no NTSC channels on air right now that are being transmitted without a sister ATSC channel. I know four local stations in my area are sharing a single ATSC multiplex, and will switch to at least two independent ATSC stations (WTCN, WTVX) once the transition is over. They're not saving any electricity by switching over.
I'm not saying that the delay isn't causing some money to be spent that otherwise wouldn't be, but, hey, if the aim is to save money, why bother with a digital transition in the first place? It'd be cheaper to cancel the whole thing and stick with NTSC. People who want the country to go digital should, perhaps, be a little quiet on the "This is costing us money!" front.
Actually, you are wrong about "It'd be cheaper to cancel the whole thing and stick with NTSC." It requires less power to cover the same viewing area with an ATSC signal than an NTSC signal.
So moving everything to ATSC would save $ over staying NTSC.