Those of you who haven’t had a chance to purchase a digital TV converter box – it appears you’ll get a small reprieve. The House passed the bill yesterday to extend the deadline for the analog to digital switch to June 12th. The Senate passed a similar bill last week and President Obama appears ready to sign the bill.

So what does this all mean?

1. The official date for the transition will move from February 17th till June 12th

2. More coupons will hopefully be made available thanks to the stimulus package which is currently before Congress. The package includes an additional $650 million in financing the coupons

3. Some stations will be permitted to turn off their analog signals before June. This means – if you depend on analog over-the-air transmissions and you haven’t yet purchased a converter box (and you don’t have the digital tuner built into your TV set of course), then you might lose some channels along the way. Expect rolling transitions of stations – the FCC is expected to discuss revised transition rules for stations on Thursday.

Again – if you haven’t purchased a digital TV converter box – go out and get one already. If you’re hoping for a coupon from the government, then you better hope the stimulus package gets passed. If you haven’t applied for the coupon – what are you waiting for?Apply for the coupon and get on the wait list (because there is a wait list right now b/c technically the program is out of cash – hence why you’ll need the stimulus package to be passed).

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