Digital converter coupons expire

Jessica Vosgerchian

Jun. 13, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Many New Yorkers who have requested federally subsidized coupons to purchase converter boxes for their televisions are letting the aid expire unused.

More than 40,000 coupons requested in New York have expired, according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the organization administrating the coupon program.

The $40 coupons help pay for converter boxes that will allow older television sets to receive digital signals rather than analog signals, which all large TV stations will stop transmitting Feb. 18.

The vouchers expire after three months, and people who have applied for the aid once are not allowed to apply for it again.

Of the 726,111 coupons requested in New York since the beginning of the year, 132,432 have been redeemed as of June 5.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer said Thursday that he wants Congress to increase funding for the campaign to inform people about the government subsidy and to allow people with expired coupons to apply for new ones.

"If the idea is that people don't have to go without television, why put a time limit on it at all?" the New York Democrat said. The nationwide transition to digital television mostly affects people who are poor, elderly or live in rural areas -- populations that are more likely to depend on broadcast television for news and emergency alerts, Schumer said.

"They won't even be able to see me on television, which of course I find very upsetting," he said.

A national survey Nielsen conducted in December found that people were confused about the implications of the transition to digital television.

Fifty-eight percent of consumers aware of the transition believed that all televisions will need a converter box to function, and 48 percent believed that only digital televisions will work after 2009.

In Buffalo, about 10 percent of households with television don't have a set that can receive digital signals, according to Nielsen Media Research.

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Newstex ID: KRTB-0019-25978373