Feb. 17, 2009. This is the date that we’ve been waiting for. We’ve seen commercials for over a year now, telling us to “get ready” for this big change.

I’m talking about the switch to digital television. As it stands, while we had been given plenty of notice, we’re going to have to wait a few more months.

On Jan. 26, the Senate voted unanimously to postpone the shutdown of analog TV. The House of Representatives followed the Senate’s lead and voted 264-158 on Feb. 4, to delay the transition.

This is getting ridiculous. In a case like this, who is to blame?

The Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress claim that the previous administration botched efforts to get everyone prepared for the switch. They said poor, rural and minority Americans were not adequately ready for the switch.

It makes sense now to delay the switch, but it should have never gotten to this point in the first place.

The Nielsen Company, which tracks television viewing trends, has estimated that more than 6.5 million U.S. households that use analog TV sets still aren’t ready.

In response to the delay, The National Telecommunications and Information Administration will send out new coupons for the converter boxes. However, it now has more than 3.7 million coupon requests on a wait list.

Those on the wait list would not have received their coupons before Feb. 17, rendering the coupons worthless had Congress not postponed the switch.

I just don’t get it. How long has the federal government had to prepare for the switch? What has (or hasn’t) it been doing the past year, allowing this to happen?

It sounds like one of those things where the government finally comes up with a really good idea and gets excited about it, but when it comes down to actually ironing out the fine points and delivering on these promises, government officials realize they’re in over their heads.

While the delay in the switch may be better in the grand scheme of things, there are some negative aspects as well.

Opponents of the delay said it could confuse customers and create added costs for TV stations that will continue to broadcast in both digital and analog signals.

The Consumer Electronics Association said a delay may result in a shortage of converter boxes that translate digital signals back to analog signals for older TVs.

Translation: Buy a new TV.

The switch is necessary in the first place because it will “free up parts of the valuable broadcast spectrum for public safety communications,” such as police, fire departments and rescue squads, according to the Digital TV website.

So now we’re going to have more commercials telling everyone to “get ready” for the big switch to digital TV on June 12. Hopefully by then everything will be sorted out, and we won’t have to hear about this debacle ever again.

Kyle Kershner can be reached at [email protected]