Think about people in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Ohio, etc -- they need those over-the-air TV signals for severe weather warnings starting in April or so. The TV is often the difference between life and death in Tornado Alley. So if people are stuck without the money to buy a converter, then by all means, let's give them a bit more time. It's not like DTV hasn't taken off.

In the long term, I think Time-Warner has the upper hand here. Viacom is wanting Time-Warner to pay a significant chunk of more money to carry its commercial-laden content. If Viacom is unable to fund itself through these constant deluges of crass commercials, then perhaps Viacom needs to find itself a better revenue stream. Squeezing the pipe that actually delivers the eyes that the advertisers are wanting to get in front of is not a good idea. TWC owns the pipe, Viacom simply owns the content. Which one is more valuable? Considering how digital on-demand style services are taking off, I think Viacom is playing a dangerous game here. TWC can afford to lose a few channels for a while much more than Viacom can afford to lose ad revenue due to 13+ million eyes disappearing overnight.