 Due to a lack of Commerce Department funds to provide for additional converter box coupons, and on account of other potential problems, the Barack Obama transition team asked Congress in a January 8, 2009, letter to delay the end of analog TV.Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union, which wanted a delay, feared older people, those outside cities and the poor needed help.Speaking to a group of area residents as part of a nationwide campaign to persuade people to upgrade, FCC chair Kevin Martin said in Raleigh, North Carolina that a delay was "unlikely," and that it would be "unfair" to all those who made the effort to switch, and to those who bought the reallocated spectrum that was sold with the understanding analog broadcasts would end February 17, 2009.