Analog TV signals will officially be turned off across the country today, as we all know from the barrage of tv advertisements and news stories.
I have found the phraseology of the FCC's public announcements in recent days noteworthy for is urgency. "We are trying our best to provide people, especially those who are most at-risk, with the help they need to make the switch as smoothly as possible."
"At-risk"? Makes it sound like a pandemic, or a hurricane.
Virrtually every media media outlet seems to asking the same rhetorical question today, like this one from the New York Times, "One question looms large: how will TV viewers handle the transition?"
"Handle"? What do they expect? That the 2.8 million, elderly and non-English speakers who are estimated not to have yet installed new receivers may, what, become a rampaging legion of the undead?
Anyway, in tribute to the passing of analog tv, I am embedding below a You Tube video of another "great" entertainment medium that time has passed by and which has been long forgotten: the "book and record."
This one is the 1970s Peter Pan Book and Record titled, "GI Joe: the search for the stolen idol." I bet that almost everyone who was a child in that era would still today exhibit the Pavlovian response of trying to turn the page of a book upon hearing the tell-tale "bing" sound......
Friday, June 12, 2009
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