Nonconforming: Some Americans are unhappy with the nation's DTV switch scheduled for early 2009

By Lindsey Romain
Edited by Martinez Scott


Stephanie Fetting’s television is face down in her garage, where it’s been collecting dust since December.

Fetting, 19, made the decision to ditch her bedroom TV set as soon as she heard of the planned digital television, or DTV, switchover in February. She is part of a very small percentage of people who’ve been opposing the transition since the decision was solidified last year.

Raised in a strict Catholic household in Peck, Mich., Fetting gave up television for lent last year at her mother’s suggestion. She’s been anti-TV since.

“I use my set at school to watch movies with my roommates, and that’s it,” says Fetting, a sophomore at Central Michigan University, majoring in communication disorders and gerontology.

While her gadget-obsessed peers, as she describes them, type texts on their BlackBerries or uploads music to iTunes, Fetting considers herself a technology-pacifist. She owns a cell phone, a laptop and an MP3 player (not an iPod, as she’s quick to point out), but is a minimalist with all three.

Fetting prefers reading and writing, or playing intramural sports. She’s the head of her campus’ gerontology and language hearing clubs, and is on her dorm’s hall council.
“I could care less about television for the most part,” she says. “I get my news from the newspaper or online. And any TV shows that I want to watch come out on DVD, so I just watch them then.”

She even convinced her parents to not purchasing a new television set or converter box for the DTV transition, admitting they utilize their radio more than most modern families.
“It just doesn’t really matter to us,” says Fetting.

Commercials and corner-of-the-screen ads have been reminding us since December that TV is about to take it to the next level. The transition date was set for Feb. 17, 2009, but a bill passed by the House on Feb. 4 pushed the date to June 12 after Nielsen Media predicted 6.5 million American households weren’t prepared for the switch.

The bill, signed by President Obama on Feb. 11, was designated to give those households a little more time to get with the digital program.

Digital TV is the latest nation-wide technology advancement craze, a way of transforming static analog cable to crystal-clear, high definition television images. The transition has been in progress since early 2007, when televisions were first required to be produced with HDTV tuners.

Network TV stations have been preparing for the transition for the past year, several of which plan to switch to DTV on Feb. 17 despite the bill.

The majority of Americans have embraced the transition. In fact, millions of people remain on waiting lists for converter coupons, which offer a major discount on the pricey boxes.
Households that have satellite TV or have bought sets in the last few years won’t even have to bother with converter boxes.

Some people, like Fetting, have seen the transition as a way of bidding farewell to the TVs that plague them. For others, like Erin Reynolds, 21, a Washington College senior from College Park, Md., price constraints have also factored into the decision to part with TV.

Reynolds, an English, says she’s troubled by the hassle of having to replace her beloved “bunny eared” TV set, a fixture in her room since she was a child.

Reynolds is in the process of finding an apartment for her June departure from her college-housing complex. She had plans to buy a new TV before she was let go from her part-time job.

Now that money is harder to come by, she backlisted the hopes of buying a new TV, or a converter box for her old one, instead seeing the transition as an opportunity to give it all up.

“If I really wanted to watch TV, I’d make it work,” she says. “But I’d rather pay for wireless Internet so I can watch my shows online anyway.”

Somewhere in the process of actively not caring, she got swept into the politics of the situation, joining the Boycott DTV Facebook group, where users have expressed a radical opposition to the transition.

The Boycott DTV group description expresses a governmental concern with the DTV switch, likening the officials mandating the transition to Big Brother, stating that the “terrorist rhetoric has begun.” Members share links to other articles and websites, one in particular from Yahoo! that asks the question “is the change from analog to digital TV a conspiracy?”

The group was founded by Facebook user Louise M. Doire, a religious studies instructor at the College of Charleston in Charleston, Sc., who claims she is irritated with the “heavy-handedness” and “complete lack of choice” about the transition.

“There was a threatening tone of the advertising that went along with, ‘If you don’t switch to cable or get a converter box, your television reception will end,’” she says in regards to her opposition to the switch.

Doire created the group in January after consistent annoyance with ads and complaints from students and faculty. She penned the hard-hitting words in the group’s description.

Reynolds, who joined the group last month, claims she’s on the quieter end of the spectrum, laughing off the totalitarian angle her fellow group members are professing.

“I see it as more of an innocent thing,” she says. “The word ‘boycott’ for me just meant ‘hell yeah, goodbye TV.’”

Facebook isn’t the only outlet for angry Americans in opposition to DTV. Media blog New Media Musings points out that digital video recording devices, such as VCRs, will no longer be able to record programs because of a “broadcast flag” encoded in DTV streams. The blog suggests boycotting DTV because it’s a “lockdown regime,” taking away the traditional rights we had with analog TV.

Stephanie Fetting hasn’t gone as far as boycotting, but she does express concern that the transition is a little drastic, especially during the country’s current economic crisis.

“When my parents’ jobs are being threatened, I don’t really think it’s appropriate to expect them to go out and buy all of this new stuff just to watch the news,” she says.

Reynolds echoes the same thought, admitting her parents probably don’t even know what DTV is, and that mandating the switch is “too much to ask.”

Doire shares the concerns of Fetting and Reynolds. “[I resent] the assumption that everyone has computer access to get a converter box coupon,” she said.

I keep wondering what will happen to those who cannot afford cable, cannot afford a computer. I suspect that is a reality that accounts for more American families than we think.”

Part-time librarian Cynthia Morningstar, of Shelbyville, Ind., offers a different take on the matter. A long-time reading advocate, Morningstar stresses the importance of the written word as opposed to the superficial world of television.

“The most important thing about reading is that it strengthens a person’s vocabulary,” she said.

“People with better vocabularies come off as articulate, intelligent, and more interesting. You don’t get that from watching TV.”
“The lack of television inspires imagination,” Morningstar says.

“We didn’t have a TV when I was growing up, so I had to work at paying attention to clues and character details in the stories. With TV, you see it, and the magic of the imagination disappears.”

Despite boycotts and online bantering, June 12, 2009 will mark America’s final transition to digital television.

That is, of course, permitting another bill isn’t passed for a further delay. By late June, July, the months following, or next year, it seems inevitable that some of DTV’s opponents will succumb to the trend.

Louise Doire, once so adamantly against the switch, has already bought a coupon for a converter box, admitting that she’s lost the drive to commit to the boycott.

Stephanie Fetting admits that purchasing a new TV or converter might be inevitable down the road. “Never say never. But for right now, I could care less.”

Erin Reynolds is a little less carefree, admitting her apartment will seem quiet without the presence of a TV, but that she’ll be proud of herself. “I’ll probably read more, like I’ve been meaning to. And I’ll have more money in my purse.

“Mostly,” she says, “I’ll miss channel surfing.”