Use Coupons to Buy and Exchange for Analog Passthrough, CBA Says

CBA’s plea came a week after it was burned by the embarrassment of promoting a Microprose analog-passthrough box that was never certified (CD May 28 p3). Consumers need to be sure the retailers they purchase from have a “comprehensive return policy,” CBA said. They should save their receipt and “set the unopened DTV converter box aside” until an analog-passthrough model becomes available for exchange, it said.

NTIA rules say store policy dictates whether customers are entitled to an exchange or refund of out-of-pocket costs, but not of the $40 value of the coupon, CBA said. CBA “recognizes the challenges this recommendation will create” for box makers and retailers, and “regrets any inconvenience this may cause,” it said. But “we feel that the true purpose of the NTIA coupon program is to serve the needs of the over- the-air television viewers across the country and that their convenience and satisfaction are of the utmost importance.”

What happens next bears watching, as most major retailers have 30-day return and exchange policies. That assumes consumers who buy a box now will have sufficient analog passthrough boxes to choose from by late June, but that’s no sure bet. For example, LG thinks its Zenith analog passthrough box will reach retail shelves by the second half of June, spokesman John Taylor told us. The same schedule presumably holds true for Best Buy’s private-label Insignia analog-passthrough box, which LG is supplying.

Members of the CE Retailers Coalition, among those likely to be affected most by a wave of product returns and exchanges, “are committed to ensuring a smooth transition to digital, including educating about analog passthrough those customers who may need it,” CERC General Counsel Bob Schwartz said in a diplomatically worded statement late Friday. “While analog passthrough boxes are one solution, analog passthrough can be accomplished by combining a simple and inexpensive signal splitter with an available coupon-eligible converter box, as has been recommended by manufacturers and broadcasters.” CERC regrets CBA didn’t mention the analog passthrough issue when it testified before the House Telecom Subcommittee last October, “but now feels it is necessary to advise its members to tell their viewers knowingly to buy goods with the intent of returning them,” Schwartz said.

CBA felt it had “no choice but to recommend that viewers validate their coupons before they expire, even if doing so means they are forced to purchase the wrong box,” Vice President of Technology Greg Herman said in a statement. He cited NTIA’s “inability to contend with the challenges created by the expiration of converter box coupons and inadequate supply and availability” of analog passthrough boxes. “We look forward to a time in the near future where all coupon holders will have many choices and are able to use their coupons to purchase the kind of DTV converter boxes they truly want and need. We sincerely hope that the expanded availability of converter boxes with analog pass- through capability will put an end to the discrimination being practiced against analog television broadcasters throughout our country.”

CBA has defended not speaking up about analog passthrough at the October House hearing by saying it hadn’t yet become aware how few analog-passthrough boxes would be available. But it also never spoke out for analog passthrough even before DTV legislation was enacted in 2005. As to why, “it never occurred to us that NTIA would approve boxes without analog capability,” Peter Tannenwald, CBA’s outside counsel, told us in an e-mail Friday. “The legislative language as it stands does not forbid analog tuners, as least as we interpret it,” he said. “We didn’t see the disaster coming until manufacturers told us in the fall of 2007 that they were making products that block analog signals.”

CBA asked to testify at several congressional hearings “and has been turned down in all but a few cases,” Tannenwald said. “Remember, too, that we don’t have any officers in the D.C. area, and we have only one board member here. It is very expensive for us to bring someone in to testify at a hearing. The responses of Congress, NTIA, the Court of Appeals and the FCC, ranging from disinterest to negativity to expressions of interest not accompanied by any action, have strained the financial resources of both CBA and its officers almost to the breaking point. If we lift a finger, and NAB or NCTA responds with a sledge hammer in terms of lobbying, we are at a terrible disadvantage.” Tannenwald isn’t authorized to speak on CBA’s behalf about its future “or where it will devote its remaining resources,” he said. “The only thing I can tell you is that CBA is not closing down. It’s just a question of to what extent it wants to dissipate its scarce resources on activities that seem to produce words but no concrete results.” Reached late Friday, Herman told us CBA will stay around “to fight the good fight” and its resources aren’t dwindling.