People who pay for cable or satellite TV service will be unaffected by the change. The transition to digital-only broadcasts has been set for nearly a decade, but 6.5 million households, mostly lower-income, that get television signals through antennas have not bought the newer digital TVs or converters for their old sets, according to a study by the Nielsen Company.

All local stations will eventually pull the plug on the analog transmitters they've used since the invention of television. The stations have begun digital broadcasts over the past several years.

Two members of the Federal Communications Commission -- Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein -- sent a letter to Congress last month "to express our deep concern" that they were "nowhere near" ready for the deadline "to pull the plug on television service in millions of American homes."

An official with the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) said a delay is needed, but so is more money, after the federal government's fund to give people $40 coupons to help buy converters ran out of money in recent weeks.

Those who would be cut off from free TV after February 17 -- barring a delay -- include "often communities of color, people who speak a language other than English, people with disabilities, low-income families, and the elderly," an LCCR statement sai