Eliminating tuners

Surprise!  The FCC's tuner mandate for 36"+ TVs goes into effect on July 1st  and apparently an early result will be tuners stripped from some sets.  Thanks to Mark Schubin for pointing in this week's Monday Memo to a story in Digital TV DesignLine, "Tuning stripped out of rear projection CRT TVs" by Dennis P. Barker and to David Liroff for bringing it to my attention.  I can't find the flyer now, but Costco is advertising for July sale an apparently tunerless 32" LCD set for under $900, so this is applying to smaller sets as well.  David's comments: "What few have noticed - with the notable exception of Mark Schubin - is that the FCC's requirement that digital TV sets of certain sizes must have off-air DTV tuners applies **only** to those sets which have analog tuners.  ¶  By not having any tuners in their sets at all (e.g., having consumers rely on cable and satellite set-top boxes and on DVRs and DVD players) the manufacturers can lower the cost of their sets.   ¶  Impact:   even fewer off-air DTV receivers, increasing reliance on cable (and perhaps ultimately on satellite local/local) for reception of broadcast DTV stations.)."  --Dennis