Baby Boomers better prepared for TV switch

January 29, 7:20 AMBaby Boomer ExaminerPaul Briand

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This is a surprise: Baby Boomers and older Americans are better prepared for the switch over to digital television than younger people.

When it comes to electronics, older Americans are sometimes considered at a technical disadvantage than their younger counterparts.

But a Nielsen Media survey shows that Americans 55 and older are more ready for DTV than Americans 35 and under.

Nielsen said it measured the preparedness for the upcoming transition to all-digital broadcasting and how many households would be unable to receive any television programming at all if the transition occurred on Jan. 22, the day of the survey's posting.

It said 4.0 percent of Americans 55 and older were unready for the transition, while 8.8 percent of Americans 35 and younger were not prepared.

According to Nielsen, a total of 6.5 Americans (5.7 percent) aren't ready for the switch to digital television, which is scheduled for Feb. 17.

At that time, all analog signals to television sets will cease, which means that the millions of households that still have antenna reception won't get a signal to watch "Oprah" or "CSI" or "American Idol" or anything. They either need a cable feed, a satellite feed, or a special converter box that will accept the new digital signal.

Because so many people aren't ready, with the risk of millions of TVs going blank, President Barack Obama and some consumer groups have been pushing Congress to delay the switch until June 12.

The Senate agreed to the delay, but the House yesterday voted against a delay, which for now keeps the Feb. 17 cut over intact.

"In my opinion, we could do nothing worse than to delay this transition date," Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the House Commerce Committee, said in an Associated Press story. "The bill is a solution looking for a problem that exists mostly in the mind of the Obama administration."

Here are some interesting footnotes to the Nielsen survey:

• Albuquerque-Santa Fe, with 12.4 percent of unready households, is the least prepared area;
• The most prepared is Hartford-New Haven, with only 1.8% of homes unready;
• Among ethnic populations, African Americans are least prepared at 9.9 percent, followed by Hispanics at 9.7, Asian at 6.9 and white at 4.6.