The All-Channel Receiver Act of 1962 (ACRA) (), commonly known as the All-Channels Act, was passed by the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
in 1961, to allow the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
to require that all
television set
A television set or television receiver, more commonly called the television, TV, TV set, telly, tele, or tube, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or using ...
manufacturer
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a ran ...
s must include
UHF
Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
tuners, so that new UHF-
band
Band or BAND may refer to:
Places
*Bánd, a village in Hungary
*Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran
*Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania
* Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, I ...
TV station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...
s (then
channels
Channel, channels, channeling, etc., may refer to:
Geography
* Channel (geography), in physical geography, a landform consisting of the outline (banks) of the path of a narrow body of water.
Australia
* Channel Country, region of outback Austral ...
14 to 83) could be received by the
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
. This was a problem at the time since most affiliated stations of the
Big Three television networks
In the United States, there are three major traditional commercial broadcast television networks — CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), NBC (National Broadcasting Company), and ABC (American Broadcasting Company) — that due to their longev ...
(
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
,
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
,
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
) were well-established on
VHF
Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter.
Frequencies immediately below VHF ...
, while many local-only stations on UHF were struggling for survival.
The All-Channel Receiver Act provides that the Federal Communications Commission shall "have authority to require that apparatus designed to receive television pictures broadcast simultaneously with sound be capable of adequately receiving all frequencies allocated by the Commission to television broadcasting." Under authority provided by the All Channel Receiver Act, the FCC adopted a number of technical standards to increase parity between the UHF and VHF television services, including a 14 dB maximum UHF
noise figure Noise figure (NF) and noise factor (''F'') are figures of merit that indicate degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that is caused by components in a signal chain. These figures of merit are used to evaluate the performance of an amplifier ...
for television receivers.
History
While the first U.S. commercially licensed UHF television stations signed on as early as 1952, the majority of the 165 UHF stations to begin telecasting between 1952 and 1959 did not survive. UHF local stations of the 1950s were limited by the range their signals could supposedly travel, the lack of UHF tuners in most TV sets and difficulties in finding advertisers and TV network affiliations. Of the 82 new UHF TV stations in the United States broadcasting as of June 1954, only 24 remained on the air a year later.
Fourth-network operators such as the
DuMont Television Network
The DuMont Television Network (also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont Television, simply DuMont/Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont ) was one of America's pioneer commercial television networks, rivaling NBC and CBS for the distinction of being ...
, forced to expand using UHF affiliates due to a lack of available VHF channels, were not viable and soon folded. The fraction of new TV receivers that were factory-equipped with all-channel tuners dropped from 20% in 1953 to 9.0% by 1958, a drop that was only partially compensated for by field upgrades or the availability of
UHF converters for separate purchase. By 1961, with 83 commercial UHF stations still on-air, the number of new TVs capable of receiving UHF as well as VHF channels had fallen to a record low of 5.5% with a small number of viable stations situated in localities where a
lack of available VHF frequencies had forced early expansion onto UHF.
While public
educational television
Educational television or learning television is the use of television programs in the field of distance education. It may be in the form of individual television programs or dedicated specialty channels that is often associated with cable telev ...
was available from 105 US stations by 1965, many of them in the already-crowded VHF spectrum, only 18 percent of the large number of UHF frequencies reserved for educational use in US cities were in active use. In areas where audiences had no UHF receivers, a station broadcasting above channel 13 was unlikely to survive.
Under the All-Channel Receiver Act, FCC regulations would ensure that all new TV sets sold in the U.S. after 1964 had built-in UHF tuners. By 1971, there would be more than 170 full-service UHF broadcast stations nationwide; the number of UHF stations would grow further to accommodate new television networks such as the
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...
(1970),
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
(1986),
Univision
Univision () is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the Latino public and includes ...
(1986) and
Telemundo
Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language Terrestrial television, terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Television and Streaming#NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a divi ...
(1987).
Today, UHF TV stations outnumber their long-established VHF counterparts, with more stations switching to physical UHF channels after the digital TV transition of 2009.
Digital television
The act has most recently been used in 2005-2007 ( and ) to require TV manufacturers to include
ATSC
Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards are an American set of standards for digital television transmission over terrestrial, cable and satellite networks. It is largely a replacement for the analog NTSC standard and, like that ...
-T (
terrestrial TV
Terrestrial television or over-the-air television (OTA) is a type of television broadcasting in which the signal transmission occurs via radio waves from the terrestrial (Earth-based) transmitter of a TV station to a TV receiver having an anten ...
) tuners for
digital television
Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative advanc ...
, in any
TV set that includes an
NTSC
The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...
analog TV
Analog television is the original television technology that uses analog signals to transmit video and audio. In an analog television broadcast, the brightness, colors and sound are represented by amplitude, phase and frequency of an analog s ...
tuner. This requirement has been phased-in during the mid-2000s, starting with the largest TV sets. By early 2007, every device sold that was capable of receiving
over-the-air TV (including
VCR
A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other source on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette, and can play back the recording. ...
s) was required to include an
ATSC tuner
An ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) tuner, often called an ATSC receiver or HDTV tuner, is a type of television tuner that allows reception of digital television (DTV) television channels that use ATSC standards, as transmitted by tel ...
. Millions of dollars in fines were imposed in 2008 by the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
against vendors, including various name-brand retail chains such as
Best Buy
Best Buy Co. Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was rebra ...
,
Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
/
Kmart
Kmart Corporation ( , doing business as Kmart and stylized as kmart) is an American retail company that owns a chain of big box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States.
The company was inc ...
and
Walmart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
. Best Buy is disputing both the fines and the authority of the FCC to impose the penalties;
Circuit City
Circuit City is an American consumer electronics retail company, which was founded in 1949 by Samuel Wurtzel as the Wards Company, operated stores across the United States, and pioneered the electronics superstore format in the 1970s. After m ...
and Sears also disputed the charges.
In late March 2008, the
Community Broadcasters Association The Community Broadcasters Association (CBA) was a trade organization representing low-power broadcasting interests, including LPTV and Class A television stations, in the United States of America. It ceased operations in 2009.
History
Key issues a ...
filed a
lawsuit
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
in the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate cou ...
, seeking an
injunction
An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in pa ...
to halt the sale and distribution of DTV
converter box
A digital television adapter (DTA), commonly known as a converter box or decoder box, is a television tuner that receives a digital television (DTV) transmission, and converts the digital signal into an analog signal that can be received and dis ...
es, charging that their failure to include analog tuners or
analog passthrough
Analog passthrough is a feature found on some digital-to-analog television converter boxes. Boxes without analog passthrough only allow digital TV ( ATSC standard) to be viewed on older, analog-only (NTSC standard) TVs. Those with analog passthro ...
violates the All-Channel Receiver Act. Responding to CBA's actions, the
FCC
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
and
NTIA
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce that serves as the President's principal adviser on telecommunications policies pertaining to the United States' eco ...
urged manufacturers to include the feature voluntarily in all converter boxes, and manufacturers responded by releasing a new generation of models with the feature. In early May 2008, the D.C. district court denied the CBA petition without comment, effectively telling the association that it had not exhausted all its efforts, and that there was not enough merit to take the case to the courts.
In July 2010, the FCC granted a
waiver
A waiver is the voluntary relinquishment or surrender of some known right or privilege.
Regulatory agencies of state departments or the federal government may issue waivers to exempt companies from certain regulations. For example, a United St ...
allowing
Dell
Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies.
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
,
LG, and
Hauppauge Hauppauge ( ) can refer to:
*Hauppauge, New York, a hamlet on Long Island in the United States
*Hauppauge Computer Works, a computer component company located in Hauppauge, New York
**Hauppauge MediaMVP, a network media player by Hauppauge Computer ...
to fail to include tuners for NTSC analog TV or standard ATSC digital TV in
mobile television
Mobile television is television watched on a small handheld or mobile device. It includes service delivered via mobile phone networks, received free-to-air via terrestrial television stations, or via satellite broadcast. Regular broadcast stand ...
devices designed to receive
ATSC-M/H
ATSC-M/H (''Advanced Television Systems Committee - Mobile/Handheld'') is a U.S. standard for mobile digital TV that allows TV broadcasts to be received by mobile devices.
ATSC-M/H is a mobile TV extension to preexisting terrestrial TV broadcasti ...
signals. While all full-power stations have been forced to turn off their analog signals, and most
low-power TV
Low-power broadcasting is broadcasting by a broadcast station at a low transmitter power output to a smaller service area than "full power" stations within the same region. It is often distinguished from "micropower broadcasting" (more commonly " ...
stations therefore have been forced to digital as the ''
de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' standard, the vast majority of stations do not transmit a mobile-TV signal, which will leave viewers with these devices unable to receive most broadcasts. Because LPTV stations have already had their limited financial resources drained by having to buy and install new digital equipment, it is unlikely that any LPTV stations will be seen on mobile TV because of this waiver, which also applies to other companies.
Broadcast radio
In the 1980s, this law was used to require that all
AM receivers be able to pick up the new
expanded band stations from 1610 to 1700
kilohertz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one h ...
. This requirement was enacted in advance of new stations being allotted in the 1990s.
It has been proposed in 2009 to require
HD Radio
HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. It generally simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD Radio is used ...
receivers to be included in all
satellite radio
Satellite radio is defined by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)'s ITU Radio Regulations (RR) as a ''broadcasting-satellite service''. The satellite's signals are broadcast nationwide, across a much wider geographical area than ter ...
(
SDARS Digital audio radio service (Spectrum management) refers to any type of digital radio program service. In the United States it is the official FCC term for digital radio services.
The most popular type of DARS in the U.S. and Canada is SDARS: Satel ...
) receivers, in response to the
monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...
created by the
XM/Sirius merger. All three use