Audio Video News

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is considering a legal challenge to the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) recent ruling requiring manufacturers to begin including digital tuners in new television sets.

The manufacturers' trade group has long maintained that such tuners are redundant for most consumers, almost 90% of whom get their television signals from cable or satellite services, which supply their own set-top converter boxes. In a recent interview, CEA president and CEO Gary Shapiro said even though his group "understands why the FCC made its decision," they are ready to mount a legal challenge to have it overturned.

Shapiro also points an accusing finger at local broadcasters, the majority of whom failed to meet an FCC mandate to have their digital transmitters up and running by the end of this past spring. Broadcasters are getting a "free ride" on the backs of taxpayers and manufacturers, Shapiro insists. The digital tuner requirement will add anywhere from $15 (the National Association of Broadcasters' (NAB) estimate) to $400 to the retail cost of a large-screen upmarket television set. That cost won't be a factor in retail pricing in ten years, Shapiro says, but it is a major factor now, and could "double" the prices of TV sets in the 19–25" category, which typically sell in the $200–250 price range.

The other huge hurdles in the transition to digital TV are the lack of digital programming and the lack of cable compatibility standards, which the CEA has campaigned to implement and which the cable industry has resisted. "We don't need digital tuners," Shapiro stated, "we need digital cable equipment compatibility . . . . The consumer electronics industry will have to do a better job in educating the public on all of this."

The CEA's board of directors has decided to challenge the digital tuner ruling based on the presumption that the decision is outside the FCC's jurisdiction. The trade group will either ask the regulatory agency to reconsider, or will file a lawsuit within sixty days, Shapiro stated.