The office of Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) has released an alert to the news media on this slow August Wednesday afternoon, and that means it’s going to get a lot more coverage than it probably deserves. For our part, we wanted to mention it also as an excuse to post the funniest video our staff could find of someone destroying a television. The winner is above.

For her part, Cheh is concerned about the local impact of an approaching federal mandate that will force all television stations to switch their broadcasts from analog to digital signals by February 17, 2009. Only newer televisions or sets that are retroactively equipped with digital converters will be able to receive the new signal. This change has been in the works for some time now, but Cheh is worried some D.C. residents, especially those with low incomes or senior citizens who do not subscribe to cable or satellite service, may be unaware of the technology upgrade and suddenly find themselves with TVs that no longer work come February, 2009.

Cheh is calling on the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) and the Office of Cable Television and Telecommunications (OCTT) to help prepare the District for the 2009 transition to digital signal now. She’s also concerned that a large influx of discarded televisions will clog the city’s sanitation system and add a potentially dangerous toxic environmental threat if improperly dumped. In all seriousness, it does sound like it’s worth it to start getting the word out now about how and where to dispose of old TV sets, or how you can purchase digital converters. There are most certainly individuals and families living in D.C. who rely on an analog signal and get nearly all their information from television. If the city can easily help make that transition have less of an impact on that segment of the population, they should.