Shares of digital television provider DirecTV Group Inc. (NASDAQ: DTV) have been rallying in early trading as its earnings numbers for the first quarter were better than analysts had forecast. The company also announced its board approved an increase in its stock buyback program, raising it to $3 billion.

The company said its first-quarter profit rose 10% to $371 million, helped by higher subscriber additions. DirecTV was able to slightly come in above analyst estimates, with 32 cents per share compared to the forecast 31 cents per share. Compared to its first period last year, earnings were up, as the digital television provider came with earnings of 27 cents a share last year.

The nation's largest satellite-TV company posted a respectable growth of 17% for its first-quarter revenue, which jumped to $4.59 billion compared with $3.91 billion a year ago. This was above analysts' predictions for quarterly revenue of $4.47 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC) has said it will be rolling out quite a few new initiatives to increase customer awareness and education on the digital television transition set to occur in 2009. This should come as no surprise, as there will inevitably be millions of U.S. consumers who will needlessly fret when the analog television signals currently being broadcast cease to exist in a little under two years.

This is where Circuit City has a chance to shine. For years (well, for a decade, really), the consumer electronics chain has been beaten by larger rival Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY), and the pressure has only become more intense in recent years.

Circuit City no doubt sells quite a few television sets, although the profit misses and generally bad quarters in the last six months or so has been largely attributed to the declining profit margins on flat-panel televisions. This is the very product Circuit City now wants to trumpet as it reaches out to consumers to offer education well ahead of the actual analog-to-digital hand-off.

In an age of flat-panel television and laptop computer sales, consumer electronics giant Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) continues to impress me. The company rolls out initiatives that actually work and serve consumers first (instead of shareholders), which in turn brings the company more business, which in turn of course helps shareholders.

Compared to laggard Circuit City, Inc. (NYSE: CC), I believe Best Buy will continue to offer the best upside in an age of slim electronics margins since it leads the way in sufficiently groping customers for those fat-margin services, including helping them set up their HDTVs, to scanning their computers for viruses.

So, it was with a bit of shock that I read the Associated Press report that Best Buy has only doled out some $235,000 to lobby the Federal government in the first six months of this year. This fact was recently disclosed by the company, and in an age of so much change -- like HDTV transitions and declining CD sales -- I would have thought the company would be pouring much more money into the pockets of politicians who have a direct impact on the products that it sells.

Of course, as would be expected, Best Buy did lobby the FCC regarding the expected completion of a nationwide transition to digital television in early 2009. That issue alone is set to cause an even larger transition to newer high-definition television sales in 2008, and Best Buy will be a main beneficiary of that movement once the FCC gets in gear and starts warning hundreds of millions of Americans that analog television will be shortly shut down. I'm betting that Best Buy will break the $600,000 lobbying spend barrier at the conclusion of 2007. Place your bets now.