The House passed a bill Friday morning that would end analog-TV broadcasting at the end of 2008 but would not award extra cable-carriage rights to digital-TV signals.
In addition to setting a digital-TV-transition hard date, the House bill would provide a net $830 million to subsidize set-top boxes to keep analog-TV sets working mainly in homes that do not subscribe to cable or satellite.
The House bill needs to be reconciled with the Senate bill, which included $3 billion for set-tops and an April 7, 2009, analog cutoff.
Although the National Association of Broadcasters pressed lawmakers to require cable carriage of multicast digital-TV services, both chambers have so far declined to do so.
