The Federal Communications Commission, that Rip Van Winkle entity of our government, has recently been making major, blundering pushes in all manner of things. Usually found on the wrong side of any argument or situation, the Commission is now opening another salvo in the effort to fill its coffers.

The initial levies were against Wal-Mart for almost a million dollars, and 1.1 million against Sears. Follow that with $712,000 against Circuit City Stores; $296,000 against Target and $280,000 against Best Buy Co.

Remembering that, in the end, the public is who pays the cost of these fines, it’s hard to contain the anger, as the entire problem with digital television is another scheme from them to increase revenue and confound the efforts of many. How wonderful it would have been to simply have the Commission sleep through another 20 years and do even less!

In the same vein of greed and needless stupidity, further fines were levied against those producers of televisions not equipped with V-chips.  (Ah, yes, the V-chip, that erstwhile substitute for good parenting, brought about by the same lunatic fringe that thought up the digital transition. Note that I rail not against digital television per se, but the haphazard and idiotic implementation of it.)

The agency said it levied fines against two more companies for violating a third rule that set a deadline for companies to stop shipping television receivers that are not capable of using V-chip technology, which allows parents to block some shows, in conjunction with over-the-air digital signals.

In a separate action, the FCC said it had reached settlements with seven other electronics manufacturers resolving investigations of possible violations of the V-Chip DTV rules.

Among the manufacturers who settled with the agency were Matsushita’s Panasonic Corp, which agreed to pay $320,000, and the north American unit of Philips Electronics, which agreed to pay $450,000, the FCC said.

 

No doubt this round of fines is a kneejerk reaction by some cretins who think that the fines levied will somehow fund the $40 vouchers being offered by our government. Apparently their ventures into critical thought were arrested some time ago - the idea of a negative sum game is way over their heads.

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Tags: fcc, digital television, fines, analog televisions, v-chip, rube goldberg contraptions