Digital TV cutover

An article in the Washington Post reports that a number of TV stations plan to proceed with the elimination of their analog TV transmissions on the (original) February 17 deadline. One of them is near me.

The primary concern voiced in the article was public safety - the households without TV will not receive important information. I'm inclined to think that the people who care so little about their TV that they've taken no action so far probably wouldn't have the TV turned on anyway, and are unlikely to remedy the problem before the new deadline. It's hard for me to believe that any regular TV user could have missed the fact that this transition is coming.

I admit to irritation that this deadline was postponed. What makes the planners think that the people who put off action on this issue will use this additional time to remedy the situation? Must we reward procrastinators by giving them four more months? I suppose that the postponement provides one more comeback to the angry telephone calls that will come, no matter when the switch occurs.