Discussion of FCC, copyright, advertising and other legal issues of importance to radio and television broadcasters and other media companies
Here are some of the regulatory developments of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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Here are some of the regulatory developments of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations. We also note an upcoming event to which broadcasters will want to pay attention.
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Here are some of the regulatory developments of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations. Also, we include a quick look at some important dates in the future.
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Here are some of the regulatory developments in the last two weeks of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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Here are some of the regulatory developments in the last week of significance to broadcasters -and a few dates to watch in the week ahead – with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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Last week, the FCC announced a Consent Decree with a Florida broadcaster, with the broadcaster admitting violations of several FCC rules and agreeing to pay a $125,000 fine and enter into a consent decree to ensure future compliance. The violations addressed in the decree include (i) the failure to monitor tower lights and report that they had been out for significant periods of time, (ii) the failure to update the Antenna Structure Registration (ASR) of the tower to reflect that the broadcaster was the owner, (iii) not following the announced rules in conducting certain contests, and (iv) broadcasting seemingly live content that was in fact prerecorded, without labeling the programming as having been prerecorded. While the details of the violations are provided in only summary fashion, these violations all serve as a reminder to broadcasters to watch their compliance – and also highlight the apparent interest of the FCC in enforcing the rule on seemingly live but prerecorded content, a rule rarely if ever enforced until this year.
Looking at the contest violations first, the Consent Decree gives a general description of the contests in question in a footnote. One contest was apparently a scavenger hunt. The station had intended for the contest to run for an extended period, but a listener found the prize soon after the on-air promotion began. To prolong the on-air suspense, the station agreed with that listener to not reveal that she had won. The station continued to promote and seemingly conduct the contest on the air for some time, until finally awarding the prize to the original winner. In another contest, the station gave prizes to people who called in at designated times during the day. According to the allegations in the Consent Decree, fake call-ins were recorded by the station to be broadcast during times when there were no live DJs. As we have written before (see our articles here and here), the FCC requires that stations conduct on-air contests substantially in the manner set out in the announced rules for that contest – and the broadcasts about the contest cannot be materially misleading. The FCC concluded that these contests did not meet that standard, and also found another problem with those prerecorded call-ins to the station.…
Continue Reading $125,000 FCC Penalty to Broadcaster for Tower Structure and Contest Rule Violations – Including Violation of Rule Against Broadcasting Seemingly Live Recorded Programming Without Informing Listeners
Here are some of the regulatory developments of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations. Also, we include a look at actions to watch in the week ahead.
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Here are some of the regulatory developments of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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The FCC’s Video Division yesterday issued a Notice of Apparent Liability to a Baltimore TV station for airing a commercial for a Hot Wheels product in eight showings of the program “Team Hot Wheels.” The Commission has, for almost 30 years, had a policy against what they term “program-length commercials” – programs that feature characters who are also featured in a commercial that runs during the program. The FCC has been concerned that children may not perceive the difference between a program and a commercial that runs in that program if both feature the same characters. If the whole program is perceived as promoting the product, then the program would exceed the commercial limits in children’s programming set by Congress and incorporated in Section 73.670 of the rules – 10.5 minutes per hour on weekends and 12 minutes per hour on weekdays.
A decade ago, this was a significant issue. On one day in 2010, the FCC issued seven Notices of Apparent Liability, seeking fines of as much as $70,000 for these violations (see our article here). Even before that, we noted how stations can inadvertently find themselves in these situations when featured characters unexpectedly pop up in commercials for products other than those that are directly for products featuring those characters. So, where a cartoon character appears on an ad for a video game, that can make the entire program a commercial – even though the broadcaster may not have realized until after the fact that the character would be featured in the video game commercial. In this week’s case, the facts are a little different, but still emphasize the care that TV broadcasters need to exert to ensure that nothing is aired that could make a program into a program-length commercial. …
Continue Reading FCC Proposes $20,000 Fine for TV Station Program-Length Commercial in Children’s Programming
Here are some of the regulatory developments of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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