U.S. House OKs four-month postponement on simple majority vote; bill now goes to Obama.

Here's The Associated Press on today's House vote: 

Congress postpones digital TV transition to June
By JOELLE TESSLER
AP Technology Writer

6:30am 1/30/09 -- If at First You Don't Succeed ...: For the second time this week, U.S. Senate unanimously votes to delay digital TV transition.

The Senate Thursday night unanimously passed a bill that would delay the transition from analog to digital television by four months to give consumers more time to get ready, The Washington Post reported.

The Senate late Monday night had passed a bill to postpone the switch from Feb. 17 to June 12, but on Wednesday House Republicans blocked the bill from getting the two-thirds majority needed to pass under special rules applied to the legislation, the Post reported.

By passing the bill once again, the Senate is giving the House another chance to vote on the measure under regular rules that would allow it to pass with a simple majority vote, according to the Post.

The House could vote on the bill as early as Tuesday, the paper reported.

House Republicans, joined by 13 Democrats, voted Wednesday to defeat a bill that would have delayed the upcoming transition from analog to digital television from Feb. 17 to June 12, The Associated Press reported.

The final vote was 258-168 in favor of the bill, but not enough to reach the two-thirds threshold needed for passage, with 22 Republicans joining Democrats in support, the AP said.

The defeat was a setback for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats who maintain that the Bush administration bungled efforts to ensure that all consumers -- especially poor and rural Americans -- would be ready for next month's scheduled analog shutoff, the AP said.

The Nielsen Co. estimates that more than 6.5 million U.S. households that rely on analog TV sets to receive over-the-air signals are not prepared for the transition, according to the AP.

Rep. Bob Barton, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Commerce Committee, insisted the postponement was unnecessary and would burden wireless companies and public safety agencies waiting for the spectrum that will be freed up by the switch and created additional costs for television stations that would have to continue broadcasting both analog and digital signals for another four months, the AP reported.

Senate Democrats had won over Republicans in the bill the Senate unanimously passed late Monday by allowing broadcast stations to make the analog-to-digital switch sooner than the June deadline if they chose to and to allow public safety agencies to take over vacant airwaves as soon as they became available.

8:25am 1/27/09 -- Senate OKs 4-Month Delay in Digital TV Transition: House likely to follow suit today or Wednesday to put off changeover date from Feb. 17 to June 12.

The Senate on Monday voted unanimously to postpone the scheduled transition from analog to digital television broadcasting from Feb. 17 to June 12, and the House of Representatives could vote to approve the delay as early as today, according to The Associated Press.

The Senate vote was seen as a big victory for the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress who have been pushing for a delay amid growing concerns that too many Americans won't be ready for the currently scheduled Feb. 17 changeover, the AP reported.

The Nielsen Co. estimates that more than 6.5 million households that rely on analog signal television sets won't be ready for the switch, the AP said.

The Albuquerque Journal's Dan Mayfield reported earlier this month that households in the Albuquerque/Santa Fe television market were the least prepared in the nation for the digital transition, with 13 percent, or approximately 92,000 households, not ready for digital prime (or any) time.

"Delaying the upcoming DTV switch is the right thing to do," said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who wrote the bill to push back the deadline. "I firmly believe that our nation is not yet ready to make the transition at this time."

Rockefeller's counterpart in the House, Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has vowed to work with House leaders to bring the Senate bill up for a floor vote, perhaps as early as today, the AP reported.

Business Week blogger Stephen Wildstrom wrote Monday that the digital delay appears to be a done deal.

The ostensible reason put forth earlier this year for the delay was the exhaustion of funds to subsidize purchase of converter boxes to allow analog TVs to receive digital signals, but Wildstrom wrote that the Senate bill does not appear to contain any new money for converter boxes.

The bill does, however, revive those $40 coupons that were ordered but not used within a 90-day period, according to Business Week.

Wildstrom guesses that the relatively small minority who aren't ready for the switch will be any more ready in June.

Further delay will affect the Verizon Wireless and AT&T bid of $20 billion for the wireless spectrum to be freed up by the transition, as well as the public safety use of the spectrum, and broadcast stations will incur extra costs to keep both their analog and digital signals on the air for another four months, Business Week wrote.

Paula Kerger, president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting System, said Monday that delaying the digital TV transition for four months would cost public broadcasters $22 million, according to an AP report.