Must-Change TV?: Congress and Digital Television

Date:	October 19, 2005
Time:	12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Speaker(s):	Thomas W. Hazlett Professor of Law and Economics, George Mason University, and former Chief Economist, Federal Communications Commission Peter Pitsch Communications Policy Director, Intel Corporation, and former Chief of Staff, Federal Communications Commission Charles J. Cooper Cooper and Kirk, PLLC and former Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel J.H. Snider Senior Research Fellow, New America Foundation Ken Ferree Former Chief Operating Officer, Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Host(s):	James L. Gattuso Research Fellow in Regulatory Policy, Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation
Details:
Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium Since the days of Ed Sullivan and Milton Berle, television has been broadcast using the same technology and largely over the same frequencies. That is about to change, with Congress now considering plans to complete the transition to new digital TV technology, including HDTV. This has raised a number of contentious issues: Should a firm date be set on which traditional TV signals are turned off? Should viewers without DTV sets receive government help to buy converters? Should Congress require cable firms to carry all of the new DTV channels? Would that be a “taking” of property under the Constitution? And what does this all mean to the average viewer? We hope you can join us for what should be an informative and provocative discussion of these and other issues regarding the changes that are coming to your television set.