There Must Be Circuses
Proving it will attack anyone if the interests of the Six-PAC of Media Conglomerates is annoyed, the Associated Press reports: FCC Fines Stores For Hawking “Useless” TVs
(AP) Federal regulators fined Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co. Inc. and other retailers a combined $3.9 million on Thursday for failing to label analog television sets properly as subject to become essentially useless after the United States switches to digital TV next year.
The Federal Communications Commission also handed down $2.7 million in fines to other companies for violating other digital TV rules that involve shipping analog equipment and blocking technologies such as the V-chip.
An FCC rule, adopted last May, requires retailers to add labeling to analog-only TV equipment that says it will not receive signals without a special converter box after the nationwide digital transition.
The rule is to keep consumers from buying TV equipment that will not work after the digital switchover by Feb. 17, 2009. After that, if the TV does not get cable or satellite service or is not hooked up to the converter box that translates over-the-air digital broadcasts, it won’t work.
These stores sell a lot of “junk”, but when that “junk” may prevent the reception of the commercials that keep the Six-PAC CEOs in yachts, the FCC leaps into action, even against Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart doesn’t get fined for selling lead-covered toys, but when it sells cheap TVs that won’t be able to receive the advertising for those toys, something has to be done.
