The Red Wings play for the Stanley Cup tonight. The Detroit Tigers are holding on to first place. And tomorrow morning, in homes across Michigan, some people will turn on their televisions, only to be greeted by what my students call the blue screen of death.
That’s right; this is digital conversion day, and if you haven’t got your converter box yet, and aren’t hooked up to cable, a satellite, or star fleet command, you are out of luck.
I suspect we’ll survive the changeover from analog to digital without riots in the streets, but some people we may never hear about will be left behind. Many are elderly, and may not know how to connect a converter box and may be too proud to ask for help.
That worries me. Some years ago, a Hungarian-born scholar set out to determine the effect of TV on American culture. He concluded that TV was our culture, and our escape.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave without wireless Internet, you know that these are rough times. This week, I talked to an executive of the cable system in Toledo.
Cable TV costs money, and you might think the number of people canceling was up.
You’d be wrong. There are fewer disconnects than in good times. It is pretty clear why. Television is an amazingly cheap form of entertainment for the entire family. People need escape.
This is nothing new. During the Great Depression, people who couldn’t pay the rent nevertheless flocked to movie theaters. There, they watched a lot of cheery musicals and romances.
They also followed sports avidly, even if they couldn’t afford to attend the games. In that sense, there is an uncanny similarity between then and now. Michigan was mired in the Great Depression back in 1935. But when you talk to old men who remember that year, they remember it as the year Detroit was the City of Champions.
The Red Wings won the Stanley Cup for the first time, and the Tigers won the World Series for the first time.
People followed those games intently, in their newspapers and on their radios.
Incidentally, sociologists found that many impoverished people would let their other furniture be repossessed, but would somehow keep up the payments on their radios.
People need to be connected. That’s both easier and harder than it used to be.
Newspapers are disappearing. We are living in turbulent and transitional times, and I want to ask a favor of those who run our society: Try to remember that millions of us are still not on the Internet. That everyone doesn’t have a hundred digital channels, and doesn't get news bulletins on their phone.
Nor can everyone now out of work become a software engineer. We may not be able to avoid being a nation of haves and have-nots, at least for awhile.
But if those of us who are connected forget those who aren’t, we risk someday not having a society at all.
First of all, whoever said that TV was an absolute necessity for a happy and productive life? I think there are quite a few people in Ann Arbor (at least) who haven't had TV for years. Many people decided to pull the plug on TV and toss them out (I have been tempted many times while watching what passes for commercial journalism). But even assuming that most people "can't live without it", lets put things in perspective. The TV switch has been years in coming and I think has been carried out very well (there have been several postponements). The advantages of the switch certainly outweigh any temporary problems and inconveniences. Compared to the inconvenience of not having ANY health care or jobs, for instance, I think any hookup problems some people may still have (the ones who didn't get the message over the last year), is a relatively minor "inconvenience", don't you think? Don't worry, there won't be any seniors left out in the cold. It might take them a few more days to get hooked up, but I don't think it will take weeks. I'm just happy that we will still have "free" (advertiser paid) TV, because originally there was a lot of talk of getting rid of over-the-air TV broadcasting all together. Compared to all the other problems we are facing today, Jack, I think you are exaggerating this "crisis" a little bit. Besides, what's wrong with getting your information from radio?
Posted by: George | June 12, 2009 at 01:52 PM