DTV Deadline is Here!

June 12th, 2009, marks the end of analog broadcasting for television stations in the United States (for real this time). Applications for converter box coupons are still being accepted for television owners who wish to continue using antennas to receive television signals without cable or satellite service.

According to an update on the TV Converter Box Coupon Program website, the deadline for submitting applications is July 31st, 2009, or until supplies run out.

Following is additional information from our March 2008 post on the subject of The Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005:

Part of the reasoning behind the switch is that it will free up broadcast space for public safety communications (hence the “Public Safety” portion of the act).

This switch will affect those who currently receive free, local, analog broadcast signals over the air through the use of an antenna (e.g. “rabbit ears,” rooftop antennas). Televisions currently connected to a cable or satellite feed will not be affected by the digital switch. Cable and satellite subscribers are encouraged to check with their service providers if they have any questions regarding the transition. Many newer televisions have a built-in digital tuner. Check the owner’s manual for you television if you are not sure whether your television will require a converter box.

The Federal Government established the TV Converter Box Coupon Program to help defray the costs for those impacted by the transition from analog to digital. All U.S. households are eligible to receive up to two (2) coupons, each worth $40, to apply toward the purchase of eligible converter boxes. Note that the coupons must be used at the time of purchase and will expire 90 days after the date of issue.

The TV Converter Box Coupon Program website features a brief questionnaire to help you determine if you will need to purchase a converter box, as well as links to apply for the $40 coupon online, via telephone, or by downloading and printing out an application to submit via mail or fax. TTY English and Spanish phone numbers are provided on the site as well.

The Federal Government’s Digital Television website features a list of Frequently Asked Questions regarding the analog-to-digital program, the coupon program, and general digital television-related issues.

This Week in Reading May 11 - 17

This week and next are full of authors whose work found expression in the entertainment sectors of their eras. This week there are playwrights like Mikhail Bulgakov, Arthur Schnitzler, Max Frisch, Paul Zindel, and both Anthony Shaffer and his twin brother Peter Shaffer.

There are film directors and producers like George Lucas, Robert Zemeckis; scriptwriters Alan Ball and Dennis Potter; and songwriters Irving Berlin and Arthur Sullivan. There are even television performers who have written novels both weeks. Late night host and comedian Craig Ferguson is this week's example. There will be another next week.

Story writers and poets this week include Katherine Anne Porter , Armistead Maupin, and Adrienne Rich. Novelists range from Alphonse Daudet to Bruce Chatwin with the Saint's Leslie Charteris for mystery ,and science fiction is represented by Stephen R. Donaldson and Roger Zelazny.

This Week's Question: Which author born this week was the grandchild of the author of one of the books mentioned in the Answer to Last Week's Question below?

Answer to Last Week's Question: There is debate about it, but Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera, which was serialized first in 1909 to 1910 and adapted for stage and screen in many ways, may have been inspired by an English gothic horror novel from 1894 called Trilby in which a mad hypnotist named Svengali made an opera diva of a tone deaf woman in bohemian Paris. Susan Kay's 1991 Phantom retells Leroux's story in a literarily satisfying novel which also alludes to elements of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version.

This Week in Reading April 6 - 12

What do you say for a week that begins with the birth of the Twinkie (tm) and ends up on the birthday of David Letterman? Oh, sure, there's a Nobel prizewinner in it, Gabriela Mistral, who was the first Latin American woman to win that prize, and some fine literary writers, Donald Barthelme and Paul Theroux, for example. But other than Joseph Pulitizer, whose bequest gives the prize of that name to many winners too numerous to keep track of here, (twenty some a year - see who's announced all throughout the week,) there is not a lot of literary depth in reading this week.

Of course, if you like creative science fiction, thrilling fiction, and great muckraking journalism, you're good to go. You'll juist have to look at this week's list to see who these fine writers are.

Answer to Last Week's Question: Okay, if you don't have a favorite poem to share, how about one in your pocket each day? Go to the Academy of American Poets and find out about Poem in Your Pocket. The big day is Thursday, April 17. Get your poem here. We've got lots, at all the branches.

This Week's Question: There are playwrights and poets, too, this week. One of them may or may not have been both, (as we have dealt with before in this space), but can you guess which author this week said the following? "To know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare; to see the insignificance of human learning we may study his commentators."