As SHOOT went to press, the U.S. Senate had approved postponing the country’s transition to digital TV from Feb. 17 to June 12. It now appears likely that some sort of delay, which has the backing of President Obama’s administration, will come to pass.
On the ad industry front, three key groups–the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) and the American Advertising Federation (AAF)–have expressed their joint support for the four-month reprieve. The organizations cited the amount of households that are not ready for the transition, as well as the chance for the government to address some unresolved issues that arose throughout the transition process.
Currently many households are still categorized as either “completely” or “partially unready” for the transition. As of January 2009, Nielsen Media Research estimated that 5.7 percent of television households were “completely unready,” meaning they did not have any sets equipped to receive digital signals. This amounts to approximately 6.5 million households.
Meanwhile, another 9.2 percent of homes were “partially unready,” meaning they contained at least one set that was not equipped to receive digital signals and one or more sets that are ready; this translates to about 10.5 million households.
These 17 million “unready” households would lose television reception either completely or partially should the transition occur in February. The ANA, AAAA and AAF are concerned that this sudden loss of the ability to receive television transmission would cut off many millions of Americans from important media access, including commercial messages.
The ad industry groups further contend that the proposed four-month delay in implementation would give the government the opportunity to address the issues it has had with the TV converter box coupon program, including unclear expiration dates, and reimbursement funds that have been depleted. Removing these impediments would in turn allow more of the “unready” households to upgrade their systems and be deemed ready for the pending transition.
The ANA, AAAA and AAF contend that by June the prospects are much better for a smooth digital transition in which few or no households would lose television transmission.
Review: Director Alex Parkinson’s “Last Breath” Starring Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu
A routine deep sea diving mission in the North Sea goes terribly wrong when a young diver is stranded some 300 feet below the surface in the new film "Last Breath." His umbilical cable has severed. The support vessel above is aimlessly drifting away from the site through violent, stormy waters. And the diver has only ten minutes of oxygen in his backup tank.
As if that wasn't enough, it's also a true story.
If merely reading this is giving you heart palpitations already, you can only imagine the white-knuckle experience of watching this all play out on the big screen. It's 40ish minutes of pure suspense and anxiety as the story shuffles between the man at the bottom of the ocean, Chris Lemons (Finn Cole), his fellow saturation divers (Woody Harrelson as Duncan and Simu Liu as Dave) in the diving bell below the waters who are unable to help and the crew in the support vessel above (including Cliff Cutris and Mark Bonnar) scrambling to get their systems back online and operational as the clock rapidly runs out. Ten minutes has never felt so short โ and then it just gets worse as the clock starts counting up, showing Chris's time without oxygen.
At one point, Liu's character Dave, a no-nonsense, all-business diver says matter-of-factly at that it's a body recovery, not a rescue. Deep sea saturation diving is a dangerous business, described at the start of the film as the most dangerous job on earth. Chris tells his fiancรฉ, in a short introduction, that it's no more dangerous than going to space. She replies that it's funny that he thinks that is comforting.
The real incident happened in September 2012 โ Dave, Duncan and Chris were just one team of divers sent to the ocean floor off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland, to repair oil... Read More