All-Channel Receiver Act

In the U.S., the All Channels Act was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1961, to allow the Federal Communications Commission to require that all television set manufacturers must include UHF tuners, so that new UHF-band TV stations (then channels 14 to 83) could be received by the public.

It was later used to require that all AM broadcast band receivers be able to pick up the new expanded band stations from 1620 to 1700 kilohertz.

It has most recently been used to begin forcing TV manufacturers to include tuners for digital television, although unlike the first two this will cause a large increase in the price of sets. This will be phased-in over several years, beginning with the larger sets. Some have objected to this mandate because it is mainly so the U.S. government can turn off analog stations and sell or auction the frequencies off, while it will cost consumers more for something which has so far gotten a lukewarm reception by the public.

By law, 85% of the households in an area must own at least one DTV tuner before the FCC can turn off analog stations. However, since most homes have more than one TV, a very small fraction of sets may actually continue working without the expense of a converter box when the threshold is reached.