Deadline sought for digital television

Dallas Morning News (via San Jose Merc): Two key congressional chairmen said Wednesday that they will push legislation to compel broadcasters to surrender older analog-signal airwaves by the end of 2006 so that those bits of the radio spectrum can be auctioned off.

The only trouble, of course, is that there will be a mass consumer rebellion if Congress pulls the plug on the 20 million U.S. households that today rely on over-the-air broadcasting. The deadline they're discussing -- the end of 2006 -- is pure fantasy.