Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is proposing the transition to all-digital television signals be delayed until June 12.
The current DTV-switch date is Feb. 17, but President-elect Barack Obama last week asked legislators to push the date back.
Meanwhile the Associated Press is reporting today that at noon sharp in Hawaii, a message appeared on analog TV sets across the islands: "All full-power Hawaii TV stations are now digital."
The state has shut down old-fashioned broadcast signals more than a month before the rest of the country is set to make the now-contentious switch.
Even before the change, residents lit up special TV help center phone lines set up by the Federal Communication Commission. On home screens, the shutdown message flashed for about a minute in white text on a blue background. Then, a seven-minute announcement video began a broadcast loop that will continue for several weeks on major island stations.
Technicians are calling it the "analog night light."
The FCC center got 300 calls for help Wednesday and braced for more after the switch.
