FCC Seeks $6.6 Million in DTV Fines from 11 Firms
The FCC whip cracked Thursday against 18 CE companies for mislabeling analog-only TV sets, leaving full V-chip functionality out of DTV sets or shipping analog-only sets with no digital tuners. Notices of apparent liability propose fines totaling $6.6 million against 11 companies. Consent decrees totaling $3.4 million were adopted against seven CE makers for violating requirements that DTV sets’ V- chips adopt content advisory rating system changes. The NALs and consent decrees were adopted Wednesday. Early Thursday, the FCC canceled an open meeting whose agenda included the actions.
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Of 11 NALs, seven were issued against big chains accused of analog labeling violations. They include Sears and Kmart ($1.1 million total in proposed fines); Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club (total $992,000); Circuit City ($712,000); Fry’s ($384,000); Target ($296,000); Best Buy ($280,000); CompUSA ($168,000). NALs against the retailers proposed $8,000 fines for each infraction. That’s 137 alleged violations for Sears and Kmart, the retailer hit with highest proposed penalties.
The CE Retailers Coalition bristled at the retail NALs. The group’s quarterly report, also filed Thursday under the FCC DTV consumer education order, “should speak for itself as to the constructive efforts that retailers have made with respect to every phase of the DTV transition, including the ‘analog-only’ labeling regulation,” CERC said in a statement. CERC and its members did all they could to promote the transition, and to comply with the “analog-only” rule even though it isn’t sure the FCC has jurisdiction to impose it.
CERC believes anything short of 100 percent compliance in every member store will “ultimately be viewed as in no sense ‘willful’ or ‘repeated,'” it said. Even FCC engineers, “long after these inspections were made, have not been 100 percent certain, from available information, which products actually require labels,” CERC said. “We continue to hope that the good faith efforts of CERC’s members will be recognized,” as the commission did in praising retailers in its DTV education order, CERC said.
Two NALs propose fines of $1.6 million for DTV tuner mandate violations. One accuses Precor of shipping workout gear with built-in analog-only TVs but no digital tuners, to be punished with $357,900 in fines. The other orders $1.27 million in fines against Syntax-Brillian. Last May the FCC slapped Syntax-Brillian with $2.9 million in proposed fines for shipping TVs interstate without digital tuners.
Polaroid and Proview face fines of $775,000 and $300,000, respectively, for V-chip violations, the commission said in two other NALs. The agency signed consent decrees with seven other firms accused of V-chip violations: LG ($1.7 million in proposed fines); Philips ($450,000); Sanyo ($375,000); Vizio ($370,000); Panasonic ($320,000); Westinghouse ($210,000); and Audiovox ($20,000). Besides paying the fines, companies agreed to “compliance measures,” such as training workers on FCC rules, fixing noncompliant TVs already on the market, reviewing design specifications and testing gear for FCC compliance rules, and reporting periodically to the commission to verify compliance, the agency said.
Panasonic’s consent decree declares that the company violated the DTV tuner mandate. Panasonic two weeks ago “voluntarily disclosed” to the FCC that after the rule took effect in March 2007 a subsidiary kept importing and shipping interstate analog-only tuners marketed as kits for aftermarket installation in automotive video-entertainment systems, the consent decree says.