FCC fines stores over digital TV

WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators Thursday fined Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co. Inc., and other retailers $3.9 million combined for failing to properly label that analog-only televisions being sold will need to be retrofitted after the switch 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 display or affix "consumer alert" labels to analog-only TV equipment -- including TVs, DVDs, videocassette recorders and digital video recorders -- that says it will not receive signals after the nationwide digital transition without a special converter box.

The rule is to keep consumers from buying TV equipment that will not work after the digital switch by Feb. 17 next year. After that, if the TV doesn't get cable or satellite service or isn't hooked up to the converter box that translates over-the-air digital broadcasts, it won't work.

Hoffman Estates-based Sears Holding Corp., which operates Sears and Kmart retail stores, was fined nearly $1.1 million for the labeling violation, while Wal-Mart was given a $992,000 fine and Circuit City Stores Inc. was handed a $712,000 fine. Target, Best Buy, Fry's Electronics Inc. and CompUSA Inc. were assessed fines between $168,000 to $384,000.

Sears, fined for 15 of its stores, its Web site and 20 Kmart stores, said in an e-mail statement it was "surprised" by the FCC's action and had eliminated analog inventory from its stores last fall and will soon offer converter boxes.