Clark's Spot

Just turned on the television, and it looks as though Armageddon has been avoided. My tv still works.

The Digital TV switchover has been sitting out there for years now. A year ago, television stations went frantic in trying to convince millions of Americans to race out for special receivers and converter boxes to avoid a blank television on February 17. A few weeks ago, Congress and the President even changed the law to delay the mandated shut-off date for broadcasting on analog. The stations in my market went ahead with the switchover today anyways. I doubt many noticed.

More than half of Americans have cable and aren’t affected. And even more have bought a television recently enough to catch the digital signals without a special piece of equipment. How many Americans might be affected? 14 percent. If they all have really old TVs. Leave No Television View Behind. (They might start reading.)

Lots of fear, because without urgency I might miss my third-rate newscast. DTV-2K. Hype overblown.

We missed a great chance to stimulate the economy today because of months and months (and months) of breathless DTV hype. We should have had broadcasting television stations make the change without any announcements. Then we might have had hundreds of thousands of Americans scrambling for new televisions today and placing calls to repairmen. The result would have been a huge spending spree and millions of dollars of retail purchases. Could have started an economic turnaround if somebody would have thought it out. Instead, those millions of purchases were spread out over 12 months – diluting their impact and leaving us to wait for small tax refunds, rebates, and reductions.

The big news from the past two days (since the attacks in Mumbai) is the declaration that the United States is in a recession. The stock market had bad news the day of the announcement, and a bump up the day after.

But I’m not really sure what to make of the “news.” It was pretty clear that the economy was having a tough time before the official pronouncement.

I’m not an economist, and I haven’t conducted detailed studies on herd mentality and crowd reactions. But it strikes me that one of the positive things today is that we’re saying the word now. It puts a name to the thing haunting us and keeping us awake at night. No more of this he-who-shall-have-no-name crap. The reason I don’t want to overspend on Christmas presents isn’t the slowdown or bad times or the economy. It’s the recession.

It’s a serious word, and it makes everyone stop and think. Do I need the extra coffee? Should I buy the extra gift? Can we eat in tonight? It works in business as well. Can I justify this expense? Are we throwing good money after bad? Are we really fixing the problem? Is this the most efficient and cost-effective way to do this?

That’s good practice – for individuals and businesses – in good times and in bad. It might be the brightest spot for a bit.