The CEA says that there is no evidence to justify moving up the DTV tuner inclusion date for sets sized 13 to 24 inches. The FCC wants to move up the date by half a year from July 1st 2007 to December 31st 2006. At this time, all 13″ and larger televisions will be required to include an over-the-air DTV tuner.

In their filing, CEA and CERC cautioned that the accelerated date would be extremely difficult for manufacturers to meet. Manufacturers Philips and SHARP provided the FCC with very specific factual data as to why it is simply too late to modify product, production, financial and personnel resource cycles to incorporate DTV tuners in all TV receivers 13-inches and above any earlier than March 1, 2007.

Frankly I have no idea if Philips and SHARP are telling the truth. But we’re talking about including DTV tuners in television sets to go on the market a year and a third from now. Surely that’s enough time to do something. Personally, I think that these companies realize that a DTV tuner is a useless feature that consumers won’t care about, so they’re trying to make as much money off the current television sets as they can. They have to do this before they have to include a DTV tuner that will cut into their profit margins and potentially raise the price of these TV’s, much to consumers’ chagrin. And hey, it’s a free world, they can do what they want. But I won’t believe them when they say they can’t deliver until March 1, 2007. How do you really know something that specific about a year and a half away? How can they say March 1, 2007? What about February 28th, 2007? Is it not conceivable that they’d come out a day early? What about two months?

Link: CEA - NO EVIDENCE JUSTIFIES AN ACCELERATED DIGITAL TUNER MANDATE, SAY CEA AND CERC