EchoStar, Funai Granted Waiver Requests To Market New DVRs Without Analog Tuners

The FCC Media Bureau granted EchoStar and Funai their separate waiver requests to market new models of DVRs without analog tuners, it said in an order adopted Friday and released Monday in dockets 15-47 and 15-42. The waiver requests were unopposed, the bureau said. CEA submitted the only comments in either docket and did so to urge the bureau to quickly eliminate the analog tuner requirement for all manufacturers (see 1503130017). Though the bureau stopped well short of granting CEA's request to eliminate all analog tuner rules, it agreed with EchoStar and Funai that a digital-only device has “several advantages over equipment using both analog and digital tuners,” including lower costs that can be “passed down to consumers,” it said. It also agreed that granting the waivers “would have a minimal impact on consumers” because “the vast majority” of their target markets “would be entirely unaffected by the elimination of an analog tuner,” since they buy pay-TV subscriptions or will have the devices hooked up to TVs that already have built-in analog tuners, it said. The bureau will hold EchoStar and Funai to their “voluntary commitments to educate consumers and retailers about the capabilities and limitations” of their devices, it said. Each company commits to “provide retailers with an in-store product information data sheet and consumer education materials describing their respective devices’ functionality,” it said. They also must “clearly disclose in product guides that their devices lack the ability to receive over-the-air analog signals,” it said. EchoStar and Funai must offer free 30-day return or exchange privileges if the customer purchased a device with the “mistaken belief that it receives analog services,” the bureau said. “We believe that these commitments will adequately protect any consumers that this waiver will affect.”