When Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) President Gary Shapiro revealed the forecast for a 0.6% decline in industry revenues during 2009, he put the best spin possible on the prediction. Consumer electronics (CE) sales will be "relatively flat," he said, in a year when U.S. consumers are making deep spending cuts in many categories. Shapiro's keynote remarks at January's International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas anticipate the uncertainty of a truly "transitional" year in the U.S. economy and the CE industry in particular. On the same day that Shapiro spoke, the incoming American President Barack Obama called for an indefinite postponement of the final transition to digital TV (DTV) broadcasting. Obama wants to push back indefinitely the February 17 deadline (which has been scheduled for four years) because of the difficulties encountered by viewers, especially poor and aging people, who need a converter box to continue receiving over-the-air TV signals.
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