Once again, our federal government went about improving our wretched lives — no matter that no one asked — by mandating a change in TV reception.
As usual for right-wingers, blame the federal government and claim they were just monkeying around with our way of life even though "no one asked."
Actually, the truth is somewhat more complicated than that.
Many years ago, the FCC was set to designate a large portion of the broadcast spectrum for public uses (emergency communications and the like). However, television broadcasters set up a hue and cry about how they
needed those frequencies for future "high-definition television." At that time, there wasn't really any HDTV on the horizon (a test using analog television techniques had failed badly in Japan), and the broadcasters had no intention of using HDTV; they simply wanted those frequencies available for future use. Anyway, they did a huge song-and-dance about the wonders of this (never to happen, in their opinion) hi-def future, and convinced Congress to block the re-designation of that spectrum. Of course, according to the Law of Unintended Results, it wasn't too long thereafter that a digital technique for
really broadcasting HDTV became possible, and the Congressional committee overseeing telecommunications jumped all over it, demanding that broadcasters give detailed plans for implementing the wondrous high-def future they had so rhapsodized over earlier. The broadcasters were trapped: they either had to admit that their previous song-and-dance had been an attempt to mislead Congress for ulterior motives, or figure out how to go high-def for real. Guess which one they chose?