I'm Not Ready for the Digital Switch

Published: Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2009 | Page 13A Sacramento Bee

For at least a year now the warnings have been steady: My antenna TV will soon be obsolete.

Actually it's not a real antenna, just a set of rabbit ears patched in via a large wad of tinfoil. Nothing like the sparse aluminum tree we had on the roof when I was a kid. Sometimes my dad had to get out on the roof and make adjustments, trying to bring in a signal from a distant station, and we took for granted a certain amount of static and snow. It added atmosphere, if anything.

The town I lived in, like most of America, had its own little forest of such trees, creeping up the sides of buildings and perilously toenailed in at difficult angles, avoiding conflict with power lines.

That superstructure of aluminum tubes and wires has long since given way to alternative, supposedly superior, forms of transmission, which share a fatal flaw: They're expensive. A few stubborn iconoclasts have continued to insist on free television, using coat hangers and pie plates to capture fragile signals.

The public airwaves have always been our commons, where great national events can be seen at no cost. It has become a right as fundamental as free speech. But the government has declared those airwaves off-limits to television broadcasts as of Feb. 17. So on that day, I will be officially out of touch. I have only one thing to say: The Super Bowl will be over by then.

I'll have no further use for the TV, except that it will continue to work just great as a means of watching DVDs I can pick up used for four bucks.

I've known this was coming for a long time, and I haven't been that worried about it. Even as the ad campaign urging viewers to buy the converter box has intensified, I've maintained a calm dignity. I saw quite a few commercials during the bowl game season, each finding different language and images to coax me into hooking up.

They have used every appeal in the book, including setting a commercial to music. The catchy hook? "Get Ready." Well, I'm ready. Ready to convert my television to an aquarium if need be.

The alternative is buying in to the cable game by responding to one of the many offers I receive in the mail, urging me to sign up for a $29.95 a month "package" including great movies, original programming, and sports. The catch to all these offers is the implied commitment. I'd have to actually watch all those channels if I had them.

Old "Sopranos" episodes, Season 1 of "Deadwood," classic cartoons - in short, anything I might want to watch - is already on DVD. What's the use of tunneling through lengthy programming schedules to discover when my favorite shows are in re-run, when I can heat up some pie and watch them whenever I want? Just pop in a disc. No monthly fees.

I have to admit I'll miss Natalie Bomke. She's perky and adorable, and somehow I know she'd never do me wrong, but she rarely has anything to say that I can't find out for myself by going outside or grabbing the old newspaper I find in my light-rail seat.

All the really important news - for instance, who's dating Britney - is right there when I log on to my e-mail, so I doubt I'll really fall behind. At parties and around the water cooler, I'll be able to respond intelligently to plot-driven queries by recalling a few basic rules of programming: the Brian Dennehy Rule, which states that characters' moral integrity is revealed in the arrangement and depth of their smile-wrinkles; the Roma Downey Rule, specifying the amount of innate goodness we possess, and the Oprah Rule, which requires all conflict to be resolved amicably when opposing forces recognize their mutual humanity. As long as you know that, you know what's on TV.

So I'm not ready. And, despite the fact that I already have one of those discount cards to ease my purchase of the converter box, I don't think I'll be ready.

Why is it such a big deal, anyway? Only about 15 percent of viewers will be affected. That is to say, dedicated viewers have already modernized and long since accepted monthly cable bills that would make lesser men, like me, reluctant. Those left unwillingly without TV will be better off. They'll look around, rub their eyes, maybe step outside. All the things people don't do while watching TV.

It wouldn't surprise me if making television more difficult to get has a positive effect on things. More books will be read. OK, more celebrity magazines and tabloid newspapers will be read. But maybe a few people will shake off the television stupor they've been in and start gardening or building birdhouses or getting to know their neighbors, similarly disencumbered. Who knows what could happen with all that free time?