U.S. could face glitch in TV converter box program

By Peter Kaplan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials are facing a potential glitch in a program designed to help television viewers make the switch to digital TV next year. 

A Commerce Department official told House lawmakers that more money might be needed to mail out all the $40 government coupons that will be available to subsidize converter boxes that some TV owners will need for the February 2009 switchover.

Bernadette McGuire-Rivera, associate director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said at a hearing that it was possible the agency "would have to get more money, basically to buy more stamps to send out coupons."

"This sounds like it could be a big problem here," Rep. Edward Markey, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, said at the hearing before the panel.

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