Friday is D-day for TV viewers across America because Friday is the last day when you can watch TV on your analog tv sets, unless you’re a cable or satellite subscriber or you have a new tv set.

So what exactly will be happening on June 12? On June 12 ALL tv stations will be switching completely to digital over the air broadcast television. No analog signal will be transmitted for your rabbit ear antennas to catch. The good news is that you won’t have to put up with grainy tv anymore but the bad news is that if you’re still relying on the rabbit ears you won’t be putting up with any tv at all.

So what can you do to make sure you will still be able to watch tv after Friday even if your TV isn’t equipped for getting digital signals? Here are some things you can do.

Subscribe to cable or satellite TV – The cable and satellite providers will be the one to do the analog to digital conversion for you. The problem with this is of course is more bills to pay and in this economy this is not the solution for everyone.

Buy a “digital to analog converter box” – I checked it out at Walmart.com and you can get these for $49.87. Again the problem is the cost but the good news is that the government has helped defray the cost by issuing $40 coupons at 2 coupons per household. You can get your coupon at the “TV Converter Box Coupon Program” website. Note though that as of the moment coupon issuance is on hold but you can still sign up and be waitlisted.

Appearing on TV anytime soon? Better clean up your language. Well if you don’t like the network you’re going on and you’ll be live start cussing on TV because it sure will get them in trouble.

The Supreme Court has decided to take a stronger stand against the use of indecency in TV as you can see in their decision on the case of FCC (Federal Communications Commission) vs Fox TV (Case No. 07-582) last Tuesday. The courts decided in favor of FCC with 4 out of the 5 justices concurring with the decision. In the case syllabus they stated that the “Federal law prohibits the broadcasting of “any . . . indecent . . . language,” 18 U. S. C. §1464, which includes expletives referring to sexual or excretory activity or organs.” It doesn’t matter whether the indecency be scripted or not a repeated offense or not. The court will be taking a stronger stance that will be forcing TV stations to be more conscientious in editing stuff before they show it.

For parents this is a huge relief because we all know just how much vulgarities about in television today. As Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “The commission could reasonably conclude that the pervasiveness of foul language, and the coarsening of public entertainment in other media such as cable, justify more stringent regulation of broadcast programs so as to give conscientious parents a relatively safe haven for their children.” On the other hand we adults will have to contend with all the bleeps that we can expect to be hearing even more frequently now.

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