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Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Others Fined Over Digital TV Notices

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the caught-with-your-pants-down dept.

Ian Lamont writes "The FCC has fined 11 retailers and television manufacturers for violating rules relating to the 2009 digital TV transition. Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, Sears, Kmart, and Wal-Mart supposedly failed to place notices near analog-only TV sets warning customers that the sets did not have digital tuners. In part, the required notice reads: 'This television receiver has only an analog broadcast tuner and will require a converter box after February 17, 2009, to receive over-the-air broadcasts with an antenna because of the Nation's transition to digital broadcasting. Analog-only TVs should continue to work as before with cable and satellite TV services, gaming consoles, VCRs, DVD players, and similar products.' The fines total $6.6 million."

2 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And will any of this $$$... by xaxa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't really think you can apply your country's pricing to the cost of the devices in the United States. Here the cheapest they go for is about $60. So to say that it's half the cost of a $40 voucher doesn't exactly make sense. If there weren't vouchers from the state (and there aren't in the UK), you can bet they'd be $40 cheaper ;-)
  2. Re:Just the cost of doing business by cheebie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But what if that $6 million fine was the result of an extra $60 million profit from selling cheap TVs for people to put in their bathroom/camper/boat/etc?

    These fines should be based on some percentage of the profits from the activity in question. And that percentage should be over 100%.