“What’s it worth to make sure nothing gets between Americans and their TV sets? Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) thinks $3 billion is about right. That’s what he proposed yesterday to spend to make sure TVs don’t go blank when broadcasters switch to digital signals in about four years,” reports The Washington Post.

“The money would subsidize the cost of set-top boxes to convert digital signals to play on the old analog sets that millions of people without cable or satellite TV rely on. Under Stevens’s proposal, people would make a $10 co-payment for the boxes and the government would absorb the rest of the cost. The cash would come from an estimated $10 billion to be raised from auctioning the spectrum when analog broadcasts end.”