In an op-ed piece for The Tennessean, NCTA President & CEO Kyle McSlarrow describes the role that cable will play in the coming digital television transition, set for February 17, 2009:

The good news for cable customers in Tennessee and across America is that the digital transition should be easy.

The cable industry reached a private agreement with public television stations in 2005 to provide cable carriage of their digital TV signals in each market during and after the transition. Then earlier this month, the FCC adopted a cable-supported proposal for cable companies to provide all customers with commercial broadcast TV signals after the transition. As a result, cable companies not only will carry the main digital signal of the commercial stations in your area, but will duplicate that signal into the old analog format so that it can be viewed on any older analog TV sets connected to cable in your home. This approach will make the digital TV transition effortless for all cable customers and provide a valuable assist to commercial TV stations trying to reach all of the homes in their region.

You can read the entire article online.