Clock Ticking for Analog Televisions

Attention owners of primitive TVs: If you still use an antenna to watch “American Idol,” your picture will disappear at midnight on Feb. 17, 2009, unless you buy something called a digital converter box.

No one knows how much these boxes, which have yet to be produced, will cost. But the government will help you pay for them, at least until the money runs out.

The reason millions of TVs will be rendered obsolete is a government mandate for broadcasters to convert their signals from old-style analog to new-style digital.

The agency responsible for overseeing distribution of the converter boxes, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, explained Monday how the program is supposed to work.

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Every household, regardless of whether it needs a box, will be eligible to receive two coupons worth $40 each that can be used to buy two converter boxes. The coupons must be requested between Jan. 1, 2008 and March 31, 2009.

Congress, in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, set aside $1.5 billion to pay for the coupon program. Initially, $990 million will be used to pay for coupons and cover administrative costs, which are capped at $110 million.

An additional $510 million may be allocated, but those coupons are reserved for households that only have over-the-air television.

The massive conversion is designed to make better use of the public airwaves. Digital broadcast signals take up less spectrum, so once broadcasters make the transition it will free up a big chunk of the airwaves and allow the government to auction it off and dedicate some of it to public safety.

The Federal Communications Commission says that as of June 2005 there were 15.4 million television households in the United States that received over-the-air signals only. Add to that homes that receive cable or satellite, but also have sets that rely on antennas, and the number gets larger. That leads to concerns there won’t be nearly enough money for everyone to get a converter box.

And then there’s cable.

The National Cable and Telecommunications Association reports that roughly 66 million U.S. households subscribe to basic cable. About 32 million of those have digital cable, and sets hooked up to that service will not be not be affected by the change. Anyone who receives direct broadcast satellite signals also has nothing to worry about.

That’s where it starts to get complicated.

For consumers who plug the cable right into their cable-ready TV sets, they will either be provided with a set-top box by their service provider, or the provider will send an analog signal to its customers. But the issue has not yet been fully resolved. In any case, cable-only channels won’t be affected during the transition.

Despite the uncertainty, the affected industries are bullish on the program. A coalition consisting of the National Association of Broadcasters, the Consumer Electronics Association and the Association for Maximum Service Television (a local television station trade group), praised the new rules.

In a statement released 30 minutes before Monday’s press event, and before the rules were actually made public, the group stated they would “provide much-needed certainty to broadcasters, manufacturers, retailers and ultimately the American public…”

Aspen Ski Patrol Rescues 3 Lost Actors

The Aspen Ski Patrol had to lead actors Rob Morrow, Chad Lowe and Fisher Stevens to safety after they and other skiers got lost in snow and fog and ended up out of bounds

“We’re all good skiers,” said Morrow, star of CBS'”Numb3rs.” However, he admitted Saturday, they didn’t know the mountain. “We were going every which way.”

They ended up with another group of lost skiers, who had used a cell phone to call for help. All were in an area closed to skiing.

Ski Patrol members led the group to the bottom of the mountain, a three-hour trip through heavy snow, streams and dense forest.

“It ended up being great because it was a good adventure,” Morrow said.

Stick People

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame should be renamed…

“Rock and Roll Hall of Artists You Should Have Liked More Than the Ones You Actually Did”

Don’s Guns

Band to perform Beatles album that never was…

A group of New York musicians is planning to do what the Beatles never did — perform the songs the Fab Four might have recorded as their final album had they stayed together just a little longer.

The Beatles tribute band The Fab Faux — made up of some of the New York’s leading professional musicians — will perform the songs they think would have been on that album on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The performance at New York’s Webster Hall consists of material from the original Fab Four’s early solo careers.

All of the tracks will be performed with distinctive Beatles-type arrangements, rather than the spartan feel of Lennon’s early recordings and McCartney’s first solo effort, recorded at his home almost as a demo tape.

“It’s totally on a lark because it didn’t happen. It wouldn’t have happened,” keyboardist and guitarist Jack Petruzzelli said.

The Fab Faux’s set will include the John Lennon songs “Jealous Guy,” “Instant Karma,” “Mother,” “Remember” and “Gimme Some Truth.” From Paul McCartney comes “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Every Night,” “Another Day,” “Hot as Sun/Glasses” and “Oo You.” They’ll also perform George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass,” “My Sweet Lord” and “What is Life.”

And no late Beatles album would be complete without a Ringo Starr song, in this case, “It Don’t Come Easy.”

Many of the songs were tried out by the Beatles while they were together. But the Fab Faux chose December 1970 as the cutoff date for when a song had to be started to give them the best material to work with. The Beatles officially split in April 1970, when McCartney said he was leaving the band.

The Fab Faux was dreamed up a decade ago, by musician Will Lee, who has played with all four Beatles and whose regular gig is playing bass in the house band on CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman.” He wanted to start “the greatest Beatles band that anyone has ever seen.”

Within a year, four other musicians joined the project. There was Rich Pagano, who has toured with Rosanne Cash and Patti Smith, and whose love of the Beatles dates back to playing in a Beatles-tribute band as a teenager.

Petruzzelli, who has played with Joan Osborne and Rufus Wainwright, was also added to the lineup. So too was Jimmy Vivino, Lee’s neighbor and the guitarist for NBC’s “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” band. Guitarist Frank Agnello, who had toured with Marshall Crenshaw and Phoebe Snow, rounded the Fab Faux out as the fifth member.

“We’re not a wigs and noses Beatles band,” said Vivino. The band’s obsession with detail sets them apart from mere pretenders, he said.

“We look at it totally, totally from the music side, the way a chamber orchestra does Mozart or Beethoven.”

Lee, who once telephoned Starr to check his theory of how a certain drum sound was produced, said advances in music technology makes their job easier.

“We know the tricks. We know how to get the sound,” he said.

The Fab Faux hopes to create the magic that the other three Beatles would have brought to each member’s solo work.

“The flavor of what we do is such that it really does satisfy somebody who wants to groove at an event, wants to move and stuff, and it also is just as palatable to those who just want to sit and watch a show, just listen to music,” Lee said.

The Great Don Rich…

Halliburton moving to Dubai

Oil services firm Halliburton is moving its headquarters and chief executive to Dubai in a move that immediately sparked criticism from some U.S. politicians.

Texas-based Halliburton, which was led by Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995-2000, did not specify what, if any, tax implications the move might entail. It plans to list on a Middle East bourse once it moves to Dubai – a booming commercial center in the Gulf. The company said it was making the moves to position itself better to gain contracts in the oil-rich Middle East.

“This is an insult to the U.S. soldiers and taxpayers who paid the tab for their no-bid contracts and endured their overcharges for all these years,” said judiciary committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat.

Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, might hold a hearing on the implications, an aide to Waxman said.

Halliburton has drawn scrutiny from auditors, congressional Democrats and the Justice Department for the quality and pricing of its KBR unit’s work for the army in Iraq.

“My office will be in Dubai, and I will run our entire worldwide operations from that office,” Chief Executive David Lesar said at an energy conference in Bahrain on Sunday. “Dubai is a great business center.”

Halliburton, which has long been involved in the Middle East, generated more than 38 percent of its $13 billion in oil-services revenue in the eastern hemisphere last year.

“The company as a whole has continued to diversify internationally, and the Middle East is a point that they have targeted,” said William Sanchez, a U.S.-based analyst at Howard Weil.

“They are being opportunistic in putting the CEO in the middle of the action.”

Sanchez said he believed Halliburton’s move to Dubai was not tax related. Instead he viewed it as a strategic play.

Alan Laws, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, said the move would likely help Halliburton’s position in negotiating large contracts.

Halliburton said it would maintain its legal registration in the United States and was not leaving Houston, where it was currently based.

But Lesar told reporters: “At this point in time we clearly see there are greater opportunities in the eastern hemisphere than the western hemisphere.”

KBR, the engineering and military-services contractor unit that Halliburton is in the process of splitting off, is the Pentagon’s largest contractor in Iraq.

KBR has so far booked more than $20 billion in revenues from its work in Iraq and has been the target of several investigations into the company’s billing practices. It has also faced complaints from some U.S. lawmakers about the company’s close ties to the Bush administration.

Oil and gas service companies have raised prices for their services over the past two years as the sector strains to bring enough capacity on line to meet rapidly rising oil demand.

Many new supply projects are in the oil-producing countries of the Middle East, while Asia accounts for most of the rising demand.

In contrast, a slide in natural gas prices in the United States has prompted investor concerns that oil and gas companies might cut back spending in North America.

Lesar also said he expected the price of oil to stay above $40 a barrel, providing good conditions for future investment in the oil and gas industry.

Halliburton’s (down $0.08 to $31.94, Charts) shares closed up 29 cents at $32.02 on Friday. The stock has gained 7 percent in the past month but has slipped 3 percent in the last 52 weeks. Shares were unchanged in early trading Monday.

Halliburton competes against Schlumberger Limited (Charts) and Technip (Charts) as well as other companies in the oil service contracting industry.

Average gasoline price rises 20 cents

Average U.S. retail gasoline prices rose 20 cents to $2.55 a gallon, and demand could rise further in coming weeks as daylight savings time gives Americans more time to drive, an industry analyst said Sunday.

The price of gas was the highest since September, but fell well short of August’s record of $3.03 a gallon, according to the nationwide Lundberg survey of about 7,000 gas stations.

Greenest cars

At 2 a.m. on Sunday, Americans moved their clocks an hour forward to daylight savings time, three weeks earlier than usual.

That change is expected to cut energy usage as demand for electricity falls during the early evening, but gas consumption could increase if more Americans use the extra daylight hours to drive, said Trilby Lundberg, the industry analyst who edits the survey.

Demand is strong and supply is constrained as more of the refiners who turn oil into gas are offline for maintenance compared with last year, Lundberg said.

The national average for self-serve regular unleaded gas was $2.5514 on March 9, up 20.27 cents from Feb. 23, and up 20.10 cents from March 10, 2006, according to Lundberg.

The March 9 level was the highest since $2.6598 on Sept. 8. The all-time record is $3.0256 on Aug. 11.

At $3.10 a gallon, San Francisco had the highest average price for self-serve regular unleaded gas on March 9, while the lowest price was $2.22 a gallon in Anchorage, Alaska.

Worlds Largest Horse

Last year Radar made it into the Guinness Book of Records with an impressive height of 19 hands, 3 1/2 inches tall, or 6 feet seven and a half inches (2.02m) from hoof to shoulder.

The nine-year-old gelding’s height is even greater when you include Radar’s massive long neck and large head.

He weights in a hefty 2,400 pounds (1059 kilos) and keeps in shape by consuming 18 pounds (8.1 kilos) of grain, 40 pounds (18.1 kilos) of hay and drinking 20 gallons (75 litres) of water every day.

He also has a busy show schedule.

Radar spends a good deal of time on the road travelling to events around the US.

There was no word on what specialty items are outfitted in his horse trailer.

But when you’re a world record holder and you outweigh everyone around you, Radar probably gets exactly what he wants.

See the video HERE.