The UK government’s grand reworking of digital policy, due out Tuesday, has something for every one to chatter about — from funding for a further broadband buildout to reworking television licensing fees to how the country faces up to the issue of media piracy.

But final publication of the Digital Britain report on Tuesday follows the marked deterioration of the economic environment as well as the collapse of the political muscle needed to marshall the report’ more ambitious changes through Parliament.

Stephen Carter, the former U.K. cable executive, named as U.K.’s Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting only nine months ago, plans to leave the government soon after releasing the report.

The current political crisis has Gordon Brown’s government running scared even from the restructuring of the post office. It’s hard to see the Prime Minister creating a major digital legacy for his administration starting from here.

Sanford C. Bernstein has repeatedly argued that British policy is “inching toward a managed economy” in communications. The investment firm makes a rather extreme case that the hobbled fixed-line operator BT Group could win at the expense of successful satellite TV provider BSkyB. It’s hard to see how.

The hefty interim report (click here for 86-page PDF file) calls for, among its 22 action points, a universal service commitment to broadband. But no analyst who closely follows the subject is prepared to make a commercial case for broadband buildout to underserved areas. The closest thing to business case is for high-definition video delivered over landlines. But less costly alternatives exist in most populated parts of Britain, either from satellite or terrestrial providers.

That’s why the government is involved in the first place. While cheap, plentiful broadband may sound like a great vote-getter heading into the next election, the issue is just as likely to produce a backlash when voters tally up the potential costs. At 2-megabits per second, January’s interim Digital Britain report did little to answer the broadband industry’s complaints that Britain has fallen behind in terms of the competitiveness of Internet speeds.

Digital technology policy is a dead sexy matter for politicians of all stripes to opine about. But driving through actual policies changes that would dramatically expand support for digital technology always founders when it comes time to hard budgetary decisions, vote-counting and execution.

Rather than representing a sea change in UK policy thinking about technology, perhaps the most important outcome of the digital strategy revamp will be as a marker in Britain’s slow move away from hands-off communications policies toward continental-style government regulation.

 
Image Credits: UK Dept for Culture Media and Sport and Broadband NotSpot (http://www.broadband-notspot.org.uk/about.html)

After all the excitement, endless public service announcement ads and electronics retailers salivating over anticipated high-definition TV sales, it turns out that the United States might not be switching to digital television just yet.

President-elect Barack Obama is backing a move to delay a mandatory switch to digital TV signals on Feb. 17 because viewers might not be prepared. Also, the government has run out of $40 coupons to help pay for converter boxes.

The idea that as many as 8 million homes (according to Nielsen data) might lose TV reception in a few weeks is not the kind of headache a new White House administration wants to deal with so it’s perhaps not surprising talk of a delay, possibly up to four months, is gathering support.

Traditional over-the-air broadcasters, who already have a shrinking viewer base, will probably appreciate the breathing room, says  Wall Street analyst Thomas Eagan of Collins Stewart. But Eagan thinks that cable TV companies will be less pleased if the digital transition is delayed.

A delay of this length would be a slight negative for the cable operators as they stand to benefit from over-the-air viewers becoming cable subscribers with the transition. [This is because the digital transition would not affect cable subscribers, who would still be able to watch TV on their old sets. -- ed.]

Since we expect Comcast to be the biggest beneficiary of the transition (due to the high percentage of over-the-air viewers not having registered for a coupon in Comcast’s franchise areas), a delay could translate to a higher ratio of new subscribers foregone for Comcast.

It’s not all bad news for Comcast, Time Warner Cable and friends, watch out for more ads for cheaper entry level cable packages says Eagan:

That said, the cable operators could use any delay to more aggressively market their economy priced 2-play package (entry-level cable and telephone) to over-the air viewers.

Keep an eye on

• Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer has increased pressure on Yahoo to hand over control of its search business (Financial Times)
• Yahoo is in the final stretch of its search for a CEO to replace founder Jerry Yang and former Autodesk chief Carol Bartz is on the list of candidates. (WSJ)
• Watch out iPhone; here comes Palm’s Pre and it has multi-touch screen as well (New York Times)

(Photo: Reuters)

If gadgets were fashion models, Samsung would probably send its TVs, Blu-ray players and camcorders sashaying down the runway, with reporters and photographers scrambling to get close. That’s how proud they were of their gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show — admittedly, they were all slim, sexy and worth a slip of drool.

The South Korean electronics giant paraded a number of new or upgraded TV models in Las Vegas today, including a line-up of high-definition TVs that are supposed to be more energy efficient because they use LED as a light source rather than traditional cathode lamps.

Jongwoo Park, Samsung’s president of digital media, was quite bullish when asked about the tiny LED TV market. “We’re going to create the market,” he said.

Since these TVs use less energy and contain no mercury, Samsung’s hoping the growing body of green consumers will be tempted to buy thems. No price points yet, though.

Samsung also showed off a new Blu-ray player, billed the world’s slimmest at only 1.5 inches thick. In fact, Samsung executive Tim Baxter said these gadgets are meant to be “show offs.”

But who’s buying these days? “Even in these tough times, people will invest in their family,” Baxter said. And if you’re not buying, you could always get close.