William, they aren't funding cable boxes, actually. The subsidy is for digital-to-analog converter boxes that hook up to analog TVs:

http://dtvfacts.com/82/how-do-i-get-40-dollar-converter-subsidy-coupon/
http://dtvfacts.com/latest/346/digital-converter-box-coupon-eligibility/

The most important demand from these industry lobbyists, as I see it: Make the boxes meet minimum performance requirements.

The biggest disappointment: They are still trying to block truly meaningful energy-efficiency requirements (like California's). We really can't afford to add millions of new devices to the energy grid that gulp more electricity than they should.

The digital TV transition date is open to question, actually. The DTV act was part of the budget bill, and the Senate and House passed slightly different versions because of a typo. The law may be open to court challenges.

It's a story I've been following:
http://dtvfacts.com/latest/179/digital-tv-law-could-face-court-challenge/

The MSNBC piece misses the boat, though.

What's being debated is *multicast* must-carry: Should cable companies carry multiple streams of programming from each local station? You won't stop getting the "main" feed from your local stations. No one is suggesting ending must-carry completely.

Satellite has the only multicast must-carry rule thus far, but it applies only to Alaska and Hawaii. I struggle with this. If multicast carriage is mandated, the audience potential becomes huge, which means we'll see more actual programming on those channels--and probably fewer hours of HDTV. Must-carry was meant to foster *local* broadcasting, but local stations don't produce enough local content now, and most local TV news coverage is just appalling. Cable companies and local stations could negotiate payment or revenue-sharing arrangements in exchange for carriage. With IPTV, Telco TV, etc., the regulation of cable franchises will have less justification once consumers have more options. It's a mistake to have deregulation before you have real competition, though.

What a bizarre juxtaposition. It looks as if someone grafted a flat-panel set onto grandma's hideous RCA Victor TV/hi-fi console from the '60s.

More competition in the TV-distribution arena is a great thing. So is moving toward a video-on-demand world. But I find it less than ideal to have the same entities controlling both the pipes and the content options, especially given recent FCC rulings that lessen broadband competition. (The SBCs of the world are less vertically integrated than the Time Warners, at least.) I look forward to a day when TV (a TV-internet hybrid, actually) offers a range of voices comparable to what you find on the web, and that expanded universe becomes as easily available as CBS or NBC.

On the face of it, a government TV subsidy sounds ridiculous, granted. Against that, one can weigh the billions the government will get from auctioning off that part of the public airwaves currently devoted to analog channels. Digital tuners can make the price of smaller sets more than double. But probably the most effective way to make the price of tuners go down is to build more of them. What the CEA is most worried about, I suspect, is protecting its market, just like the NAB.