Digital TV Switchover Delayed. Maybe.

From Broadcasting and Cable:

After heated debate by legislators Wednesday and a year and a half of broadcasters, cable operators and the government drilling the Feb. 17 'hard' date into the hearts and minds of viewers, the House voted today to change the cut-off date for analog TV to June 12...
The bill moves the date and allows households with expired coupons to reapply for them.
Republicans complained that the bill had gotten no markup, no hearing, and was essentially being railroaded through unnecessarily. Democrats countered that there had been nine hearings on the DTV transition in general and that it was a finite, one-time delay that was necessary to reduce the number of TV’s that would go dark and viewers, particularly senior, lower-income and rural viewers, who would be affected by the government’s failure to sufficiently plan, coordinate and fund the program.
Democrats also pointed out that the date change had the support of ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Verizon, AT&T, and a number of public safety organizations.
"Only by delaying the transition and utilizing the $650 million contained in the economic recovery bill to address these problems can massive viewer disruption be avoided," said House Telecommunications & Inernet Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA).
Behind the push for the change was an accounting problem that caused the National Telecommunications & Information Administration earlier this month to start putting requests for DTV-to-analog converter box coupons on a waiting list and slow the distribution of the coupons to a trickle.
That list had topped two million households by press time and had grown by 200,000 households in the past two days, according to top Democrats who had pushed to change the date.
The $40 coupons are a government subsidy to help analog-only viewers pay for a converter box that allows them to still get a TV signal after the change to digital.

And there we have it, the third time the DTV switchover has been delayed. And now, the most critical piece of information:

The FCC said Tuesday that over a thousand stations would still be able to turn off their analog signals before June 12 if they choose to.

Some stations have already indicated they are sticking with the Feb. 17 date. The FCC said it had heard from 276 stations to that effect, in addition to 143 stations that had already pulled the plug, and another 60 who said they planned to do so before Feb. 17. The FCC had pointed out that some of those 276 may change their minds once the date changes.

Joe Barton (R-TX), who has led the opposition to the bill in the House, suggested that the bill was unnecessary because, according to acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps, some 61% of TV stations were going to make the transtion before June 12 anyway...

In fact, a larger number of stations than previously anticipated are likely to terminate their analog operations on the original date of Feb. 17, according to Ardell Hill, senior VP of broadcast operations for Media General.

So even though the mandatory date will change once President Obama signs the bill into law, that is no guarantee your local station will wait until June 12 to turn off it's analog signal.
This will result in nothing but confusion to anyone still unprepared for the switch. To make things worse, you will still see all those announcements on your local channels counting down to February 17 as stations are still required to run them until the date change is signed into law. Come Feb 18, people without a converter may still see their old TV signal coming through and assume their TV is digital ready, then not worry about it again.
Let's face it, no matter how many times they delay this transition, there will be people not ready for it.