If the Federal Communications Commission has its way, every American will see things a bit more clearly by the end of 2006. That’s when every TV station in the United States would broadcast digital signals exclusively, a shift that will require many people to upgrade their home entertainment equipment.

Calling the shift from analog broadcast technology to digital television “a change on the order of the change from black-and-white to color television,” FCC Chairman Michael Powell announced the beginning of the commission’s campaign to educate the public about the DTV transition in Washington on Monday.

“For years the transition has been sluggish, and the FCC saw a need to jump in to provide leadership to facilitate the transition to high-definition television,” Powell said. “Now we are acting on that need.”

The digital transition could mean trips to the local home-electronics superstore for many Americans who have yet to purchase digital-friendly TVs. When the digital transition takes place, owners of analog sets will find their TVs useless without digital-to-analog signal converters. Such converters currently go for $120 or more, and although HDTV prices have fallen, a low-end model still costs upward of $1,000.

DTV offers a variety of technological advantages over the conventional analog technology that’s been in use since the advent of television in 1927. It makes possible the high-definition television that’s now widely used for sports and film broadcasts. It also offers the possibility of multicasting, or fitting a half-dozen analog-quality channels into the frequency space now required for a single analog station.

The FCC’s goal is to get DTV-friendly televisions into the homes of 85 percent of Americans by Dec. 31, 2006, the date determined as the end of the digital transition period – provided the 85 percent is achieved – by Congress’ Balanced Budget Act of 1997.

The commission’s digital cheerleading has motives beyond a desire for viewers to see every blade of grass kicked up by Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s cleats or every bead of sweat running down boxer Oscar de la Hoya’s forehead. Shifting the entire broadcast-television industry from analog to digital would free up the frequency spectrum currently used by analog TV – prime real estate in the communications world.

Although the FCC wants to use a large portion of that bandwidth for emergency communications to comply with recommendations from the Sept. 11 commission, the rest could be a lucrative source of public funds. Auctioning off the whole publicly owned analog spectrum could pull in as much as $30 billion to $40 billion, according to estimates by the New America Foundation, a Washington policy institute.

About 12 million HDTV sets have been sold since CBS produced the first digital broadcast in 1998, and the home electronics industry expects to sell another 2 million next year, according to Michael Petricone, the vice president of technology policy for the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry trade group.

Broadcast TV executives see in the digital transition the possibility of reconnecting with a TV audience that’s largely forsaken them in favor of cable and satellite TV, to which more than 80 percent of American TV watchers subscribe. HDTV would offer the picture quality of cable TV without monthly fees.

“The idea is to reclaim the link with our audience,” said Jeff Smulyan, the chairman and chief executive officer of Emmis Communications, an Indianapolis-based media company that owns 16 broadcast TV stations nationwide. “We think it’s a major step in preserving the future of over-the-airwaves television.”

The FCC plan does have some critics.

Celia Wexler, the vice president for advocacy for the public interest group Common Cause, argued that the expanded capabilities of DTV should be accompanied by more public service programming.

“What’s missing from the discussion is any notion that DTV has to serve the public in specific ways,” Wexler said. “It isn’t enough that you have the most beautiful picture in the world.”