FCC Consent Decrees Order Chains to Leave Analog-Only TV Business
The FCC is lowering the hammer on three general- merchandise chains -- the first retailers to sign consent decrees for violating the commission’s year-old analog labeling order, said texts of the orders released Thursday. The devil isn’t in the modest fines that the chains have agreed to pay, as expected (CD May 27 p5), but in the terms they must abide by to have the investigations dropped.
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BJ’s Wholesale Club will pay $20,000 to settle the allegations, while Big Lots Stores will pay $48,000 and Variety Wholesalers, $38,000, the orders said. The consent decrees expire Feb. 17, the last day of full-power analog broadcasts, they said. The chains are under strict instructions to educate the public about the DTV transition in their newspaper ads, through in-store signs and by distributing FCC tip sheets to customers in their electronics departments, they said. Among its settlement terms, BJ’s has agreed to join the DTV coupon program, its FCC order said.
But none of the directives was as strict as that which orders Variety Wholesalers, a Henderson, N.C., company with eight discount chains, to get out of the analog-only TV business this year. Starting Sept. 1, Variety will pay the FCC a $1,500 fine for each month it continues selling analog- only TVs, its order said. Variety hasn’t placed orders for analog-only TVs since Feb. 5, the order said. That was 11 months after interstate shipments of analog-only TVs were prohibited under the commission DTV tuner mandate.
Variety’s stock of unsold analog-only TVs is less than 5,000 units, all refurbished, the order said. No such threats were levied against Big Lots, though the chain has agreed to stop selling analog-only TVs by Sept. 1. BJ’s already is out of the analog-only TV business, its order said. There was no mention in the orders of restricting sales of analog-only VCRs and DVD recorders, though those products also are covered by the commission’s labeling order.
Most big CE chains, including those that have left the analog-only business, have resisted signing consent decrees. They require the accused to agree that the FCC has jurisdiction to regulate retail labeling. Retailers have staunchly argued that the commission would need congressional authority for that. “Any settlement via consent decree was made impossible by the Enforcement Bureau’s understandable adherence to standard terms that may be reasonable in other contexts, and with respect to parties that are regularly subject to FCC proceedings,” Circuit City told the FCC in the response it filed last month to a notice of apparent liability proposing analog-labeling fines against the chain.