If you think all you should know about the pending conversion to digital television is the need for a converter box coupon, you may have been hoodwinked and bamboozled by the jumbo media companies.

In fact the most important aspect of this transition may be that hundreds of new television channels to be made available by the conversion to digital have already been doled out to existing media companies with little public discussion and no public service obligations.

Bruce Dixon and Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report have been covering this story since June. Here's their take on it:

Corporate media and their accomplices at the FCC may have pulled off the biggest public rip-off since "Congress conspired to grant millions of acres to the railroad barons." Valued at $80 billion, the 5,000-plus new channels are to become the quasi-property of the same corporations that already hold the licenses for all of American television. The public has been provided no chance to influence the disposition of the digital treasure trove, a resource made possible by science, not station owners. Big Media "used their political and economic power to take possession of digital channels they have done absolutely nothing to earn."

And would you like to guess how this new avalanche of channels will be utilized by their old guard owners? As it stands now, this TV channel bounty will be used to transmit real time weather radar images 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

The official FCC website on the digital transition claims to contain "What you need to know about DTV." Yet there is not a word to explain how and why the same corporations that controlled the airwaves before the transition are to be enriched with 5,100 new channels. Nor is there any discussion of the corporate license holders' obligations to the public.

If this take on the facts is true, then there is the implication that established media organizations have been allowed to further consolidate power. Therefore wide-reaching media outlets will have even more power to shape public opinion and restrict access to divergent voices.

Remember information is the lifeblood of our democracy.