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Best Buy Nervous About Upcoming TV Conversion

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Technology is always changing and sometimes it even gets outdated. The next technology on the chopping block is analog television and it’s demise is approaching fast - in only 13 months all TV’s will be required to be digital ready. TV’s without a digital converter box or without cable service will stop working on Feb. 17, 2009.

That means that consumers have a few choices - upgrade their television set, buy a digital converter or buy cable services.

Vice chairman and CEO of Best Buy, Brad Anderson told an industry audience at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the following:

“The number of converter boxes that is going to be required could put remendous pressure on us to solve all those problems” in a short time, said Anderson.

“We’re very nervous about the potential risk. Once it gets turned off, it could be very interesting,” he added.

Apart from the supply issue, customer education looms as a problem for the retailers. Speaking on the same panel, Phil Schoonover, the CEO of Circuit City Stores Inc. said Anderson’s caution was appropriate. He contrasted the digital TV transition to the introduction of high-definition television sets, which mainly attracted the well-heeled and technically savvy.

“I think it will feel very different in this next round of TVs, because we’re through the early adopters,” Schoonover said.

What are your thoughts on this forced change? Do you think it will go smoothly?

MSNBC

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