The consumers have new cause for concern; prospective tv outages on the horizon as broadcasters proceed with their campaign of planned obsolescence. Government coupons are coming, but critics complain those $40 coupons might be too little too late or too much too soon or just right but not right for quite long enough.

As Dibya Sarkar reports, if the consumers aren’t properly prepared, millions of them could find themselves dangerously fixated by commercial-and-content-free programming:

“If consumers don’t get a converter box when the country’s broadcasters complete the digital transition Feb. 18, 2009, they may wind up staring at a blank screen.”

I hate to sound cynical, but I can’t imagine how consumers will avoid this potential programming disaster without immediate and prolonged government intervention. Kidding.