Sometimes I wish I had the buying power of an outfit like Asda. The supermarket is currently offering a special deal on a neat looking DAB radio for just £15.

A clever half-page ad in most of the Sunday papers says “A DAB radio for £15. Get one for every room.”

It is a great “call-bird” advertisement for the store. And the fact that Asda can offer a two-band, FM/DAB radio with 10 pre-sets for just £15 says a great deal about the firm’s ability to source eye-catching products at very low prices.

I am pretty sure it will not perform anything like as well as a £150 Roberts, but it will generate a great deal of interest. This offer is rather similar to the one Asda ran last year when it made a splash by selling a DVD player for £9·99. That player got several mentions in the press and on the TV news, but, of course, the offer was short-lived and I expect this one will have a similarly short life.

Nevertheless, well done to the team at Asda – I hope your staff remember to charge for the batteries.

In the UK we have a body called Ofcom that regulates broadcasting. In America, they have the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and both bodies have similar powers and are able to impose fines when their rules are broken.

The FCC sets a very high standard for programme decency and even insists on v-chips being fitted to TV sets. The “v” designates “viewer choice” and the chip is supposed to let parents block “naughty” programmes.

Philips and Panasonic were recently fined a total of $770,000 for not following the v-chip rules.

Of course the v-chip rules are complete nonsense – rather like our “after 9pm” rule. Any American kid frozen out by the v-chip just needs to pick up the remote control and set the v-password to 0000 – that default password was built in to the design in case anyone forgot the number they had entered to “protect” their set.

Likewise Ofcom continues to police the “after 9pm” rule apparently forgetting that almost every kid has a TV in their bedroom.

The FCC has also been busy in the US collecting $5 million in fines from retailers like Wal-Mart, Circuit City and others for not displaying a “Consumer Alert” label on analogue-only TV sets. This mandatory label spells out that the set will require a digital converter box after February 17, 2009 – the date US analogue gets switched off forever.

Super Bowl fans will remember that the FCC imposed a $550,000 fine when Janet Jackson had a slight “wardrobe malfunction” while dancing with Justin Timberlake. I shudder to think what the FCC censors would make of the content of some British TV programmes.

Six members of a criminal gang appeared in court in Northampton and admitted stealing two lorries loaded with plasma TV sets worth more than £500,000.

They were sentenced to a total of 15 years imprisonment with the gang leader receiving a five-year sentence.

Darren Francis, from Wellingborough, a former assistant transport manager at Panasonic’s warehouse in Northampton, provided spare keys, paperwork and details of stock movements to other members of the gang.

Sentencing Francis to 33 months’ imprisonment, presiding judge Richard Bray said: “These crimes could never have taken place without your important position in the company. You abused that trust.”

Maybe, it is time we all conducted a security review.