The reason you don't see any analog TV's without ATSC tuners in ANY store in the nation is because it's illegal after February 28th, 2007 to sell them. Kudos to the FCC to force the issue so no matter how clueless folks in the market for a new TV are, when the big analog cutoff arrives in '09, they'll still be able to watch the local networks in pseudo-HD.
It's not illegal to sell them, it's illegal to manufacture them. Any NTSC televisions that the retailers still have can still be sold. It's not until the retailers sell through the overstock of the NTSC televisions that you will see them disappear from the shelves. Sure, there may be some states where they have sold through already, but here in MD it is still hard to even find a tv under 26 inches which has ATSC already built into it.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
MrSatyre @ Mar 15th 2007 2:08PM
The reason you don't see any analog TV's without ATSC tuners in ANY store in the nation is because it's illegal after February 28th, 2007 to sell them. Kudos to the FCC to force the issue so no matter how clueless folks in the market for a new TV are, when the big analog cutoff arrives in '09, they'll still be able to watch the local networks in pseudo-HD.
Tim @ May 8th 2007 3:02PM
It's not illegal to sell them, it's illegal to manufacture them. Any NTSC televisions that the retailers still have can still be sold. It's not until the retailers sell through the overstock of the NTSC televisions that you will see them disappear from the shelves. Sure, there may be some states where they have sold through already, but here in MD it is still hard to even find a tv under 26 inches which has ATSC already built into it.