TVWeek has a decent overview of the reasoning behind the delay of the DTV transition.
What I would like to know is how much of the $1.5B USD that was allocated to the coupon program was wasted on ‘administration’ of the program? The coupon itself isn’t a coupon at all, it is in the form of an embossed plastic card complete with magnetic strip and hologram. A hologram? WTF!
A better approach would be to send just the number on a plasticized paper insert. I don’t even want to think about how many tons of plastic are headed for the landfill because of this poorly executed program.
[image courtesy Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FCC_DTV_Coupon_Card.png]