Stewart Wolpin

Dick Cheney Will Shoot Your TV
May 8, 2008

A calendar hangs crookedly on the side of a refrigerator. In the top flap picture, a wide-eyed kitten clings desperately by its two front paws to a tree branch. Below is the grid for February 2009. The 17^th is sloppily circled in what appears to be red lipstick.

Suddenly the front door to the house bursts open. Dick Cheney, dressed in his hunting vest and safari hat and carrying a shotgun, strides purposefully into your living room. He pumps, aims and fires. A deafening blast rings out.

Cut to an old boxy analog TV, its tube reduced to smoking, smoldering and sparking shards of greenish glass and wiring.

Cut back to Cheney. He's grinning his twisted grin that looks like a sneer no matter how much he pulls on his mouth muscles. In a slow, low, spine-chilling half-whisper, he snarls into the camera:

"I warned you!"

Fade to black. A phone number and a URL appear on screen. We hear Cheney's gravely voice:

"Don't let this happen to you. Analog TV broadcasting ends Feb. 17, 2009. If you don't have cable or satellite TV, call 888-DTV2009 – NOW – to get a $40 coupon toward the purchase of a digital television converter box. If you have a coupon, go to a store and redeem it! Don't make me come to YOUR home!"

Now THAT'S a commercial! Not saccharine Florence Henderson trying to gently explain digital television. What senior citizen ever called another senior citizen for tech advice?

Why do we need a new DTV transition commercial? True, folks have been ordering coupons like tomorrow is Feb. 17, 2009. Last week in the Baltimore Sun, Mike Himowitz reported the government was swamped with requests. Coupons ordered in February are just being sent and coupons ordered now could take up to six weeks to arrive.

The problem is, a lot of people who have gotten the coupons haven't redeemed them.

Earlier this week, the Department of Commerce announced 1 million coupons had been used to purchase a converter box.

What the announcement didn't say was 13.1 million coupons have been applied for by 7 million households, and more than 11 million already have been sent.

But the missive did contain a hint of the cat-hanging desperation:

"I encourage households who have ordered a coupon to use it to purchase an eligible converter box within the coupon's 90-day expiration period," pleads Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez.

Mr. Secretary's exhorting tone is understandable. An unknown number of that first batch of coupons are due to expire June 1 – just three weeks from when this tome was posted. And the clock is ticking.

With the expiration date quickly approaching, why aren't coupons being redeemed faster? It's not like the coupon's expiration date is a secret. Like on a credit card, the expiration date is embossed prominently on the front of the coupon.

One reason may be our natural procrastination. Why do today what we can put off until tomorrow?

Or, folks may simply have not paid any attention to the expiration date. While expiration dates on coupons are normal, few are good only for 90 days. People may have seen the embossed date, but it may not have registered. Why would anyone think a coupon they've waited six weeks for, for something as important as their continued TV viewing, would be good only for 90 days?

And why only 90 days – actually, less than 90 days since the redemption period begins the day the card is mailed? A spokesperson for the Commerce Department told me the reasons are "more complicated than you want to know. We can't have the government on the hook for coupons that don't have an expiration date! And it would drive retailers nuts if someone came in with a coupon three years from now! An expiration date also encourages usage."

That last statement may be true, but shouldn't the loss of television and a potential visit from a certain shotgun-wielding, trigger-happy, soon-to-be-vice president be encouragement enough to redeem the coupon?

And who said anything about a coupon good for three years? Why aren't they good until, say, March 1, 2009?

It's just one more aspect of this screwy and unnecessarily mandatory transition I'll never understand (and the residents of Wilmington, NC, may get a preview of this digital transition wackiness on Sept. 8). Since fear got this administration elected and its foreign policy through Congress, I'd like to see them use it to positive effect for once.

C'mon, Dick – snarl for the camera!

Posted by Stewart Wolpin on May 8, 2008 | Comments (0)