We’ve been talking for years about the ubiquitous Anywhere network, a network to connect all of us with digital IP connections, broadband capacity, and wireless ubiquity. But a footnote to that grand vision has always been the TV networks, which in most of the world still remains an analog dinosaur compared to the rest of our shiny digital ecosystem of computers, mobile phones, and iPods.

That changes here in the U.S. tomorrow night.

When Congress postponed the digital TV transition from February 17 to June 12, it did so because it worried that consumers weren’t aware of this coming change in TV broadcast systems, and that they hadn’t had a chance to get digital converter boxes for their old TVs. Well, just like income tax extensions, that postponement simply moved the deadline from winter to midnight on Friday, June 12. Now, consumers who don’t subscribe to cable TV and have a more than two-year-old analog TV have to do something to avoid a black screen on Saturday morning.

The good news is that despite all the winter warnings of doom and dark TVs, the death of analog TV on Friday will provoke more yawns than panic. Why? Because:

• It doesn’t affect pay TV households. According to Yankee Group’s data, 100 million households already have some sort of pay TV which can support analog TVs through 2012, leaving at most only 15 million households exposed to the broadcast change.
• Many households receiving broadcast signals have digital TVs. We estimate that 80% of those remaining households (12 million) already have newer TVs that can receive digital television directly, leaving only three million households that could be left without a signal.
• The postponement of the transition helped consumers to get converter boxes. All indications are that the five-month extension did help consumers get to the store and buy converter boxes for the old analog TVs they still own; some electronics stores such as Best Buy and Amazon are now trying to unload those digital TV conversion boxes they stocked up on back in February. With everything from TiVO DVRs to DVD recorders now sporting built-in ATSC digital tuners, the only people being left in the dark on Saturday are those who view TV as an idle distraction, not as regular entertainment.

But despite the small visible changes we’ll see on TV sets this week, a bigger change is coming behind the scenes. Eliminating analog TV will dramatically change the quality of media we see. Production of TV shows has been digital for years now, but the high production quality of TV media has been watered down by the 50-year-old NTSC analog broadcasting standard in most homes. Compare any new digital TV side-by-side with an analog one and you’ll be struck by the brighter and more vibrant colors on the digital TV. That’s not because the electronics are better (although they are); it’s because the old analog standard deliberately limited color transmission to save transmission bandwidth. Today’s new digital standards allow us to see more of the quality and detail in video content that media companies like Disney and Fox are putting in every show they create. It also makes that content so much easier to transmit, process, and play over Anywhere networks. The only thing standing in our way was our old TVs and their insistence on an analog signal.

This isn’t to say that there won’t be any glitches come Saturday morning. Digital TV will require consumers to adapt to new ways of interacting with TVs. Some examples include:

1. New channel numbers. Gone are the days when you could just watch channel 4 or 25. Consumers will have to get used to broadcast stations having major and minor channel numbers with a separator like “4-1″ and “44-4″. As an example, here in the Boston area, NBC-affiliate channel WHDH has two subchannels, 7-1 and 7-2, while public TV station WGBH broadcasts high definition programming on 2-1, standard definition programming on 2-2, and puts up four digital stations on sister station WGBX on channels 44-1, 44-2, 44-3, and 44-4.
2. New remotes. Consumers who get those new digital converter boxes will undoubtedly have to learn new remote controls; their old ones change analog channels, not digital ones. And when consumers want to jump to a new station, they’ll have to learn to use the separator button to select the appropriate sub-channel.
3. Shifting channel locations. Many TV stations put their digital content on a temporary channel number while keeping their analog signal on their old channel. Once the analog transmission ceases on Friday night, those TV stations will soon relocate their digital content to their old frequency, thereby changing their channel numbers.  Consumers with new digital tuners should rescan their TV channels on Saturday and again a month or two from now to find all the digital content that’s being made available from the transition. Today’s electronic program guides make this remapping easier, but that’s another technology that consumers have to get used to.
4. New antennas. Consumers with fringe reception may discover that digital broadcasting is an all-or-nothing affair, leaving them with no over-the-air signal where they used to get snowy pictures over their tried and true rabbit ear antenna. Those consumers have three solutions available: try a new amplified indoor antenna, invest in a rotatable roof-top antenna, or throw in the towel and buy a pay TV service from the likes of AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, or Verizon.

But for the vast majority of US consumers, Saturday morning TV viewing will be just like Friday night; the only difference is that Saturday’s TV programs will be built from digital bits rather than analog waves.  And while that may not make much difference this weekend, it does promise a much brighter and colorful future for media, and takes us one step closer to Anywhere.