FCC Fines

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  • The AM for Every Vehicle Act was scheduled for a US Senate vote this week through an expedited process
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  • The NAB and REC Networks, an LPFM advocacy organization, jointly requested an extension of the December 12, 2023 deadline for
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  • The FCC has until December 27th to comply with a court order requiring the agency to conclude its still-pending
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Monday was the 85th anniversary of the Mercury Players broadcast of the Orson Welles production of The War of the Worlds – a radio broadcast that seemingly scared many Americans into thinking that the country was under attack by Martians, that my home state of New Jersey had been overrun, and that the rest of the country would soon follow.  There has been much media coverage of that broadcast in the last week.  Ten years ago, on its 75th anniversary, we wrote an article that is worth revisiting now, with some edits to look at more recent activity that might bear on any repeat of The War of the Worlds controversy.

On the 75th anniversary of The War of the Worlds broadcast, PBS’s American Experience ran a great documentary about the production – talking about Orson Welles’ decision to delay an announcement that the program was a fictional production, not a real invasion, long after his network superiors ordered that announcement because the network phone lines were tied up with anxious callers.  Also tied up were the phone lines of emergency responders, and the broadcast supposedly caused people to leave their homes to flee the path of the oncoming invaders.  The PBS program talked about how the FCC opened an investigation into the program, and how Congress demanded that laws be passed to prevent such a broadcast from happening again.  Essentially, through some well-publicized apologies by Welles and others involved in the program, and a promise by the network to take steps to prevent it from happening again, the FCC closed its investigation, and no law was passed by Congress.  Even though the government did not act 75 years ago, it is interesting to look at how the FCC has changed since that time, and why such a broadcast would not fly under FCC rules today.Continue Reading Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds Turns 85 – Could the Panic It Caused Happen Today? 

  • The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau released a Notice of Apparent Liability proposing a $25,000 fine on two commonly-owned clusters of broadcast
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Earlier this week, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau issued a Notice of Apparent Liability proposing a $25,000 fine on two related companies operating clusters of stations in two small Kansas markets.  Those clusters have, because of financial setbacks (leading to bankruptcy), reduced staff so that they no longer have 5 full-time employees at either cluster and thus are no longer subject to the FCC’s EEO outreach requirements. In this Notice, the FCC staff looked back to a few isolated violations in 2020 and 2021, when the stations had 5 or more full-time employees, to justify the proposed $25,000 fine.

The Enforcement Bureau pointed to the late upload to the online public file of three Annual EEO Public File Reports. The Bureau also pointed to the late upload of two Annual EEO Public File Reports at one of the clusters, and one late upload at the other cluster.  Both the 2020 and 2021 reports for one cluster were uploaded in June 2021, when the reports were due in February of each year.  Thus, one report was 5 months late, the other 17 months late.  At the other cluster, the 2021 report was uploaded a year late.  There was no allegation that the reports were not completed on time – just that they were not timely uploaded.Continue Reading $25,000 Proposed Fine for Alleged EEO Violations at Kansas Radio Clusters – A Higher Standard for FCC EEO Enforcement?

  • In a last-minute reprieve, the House and Senate agreed on Saturday, September 30 to fund the government for another 45
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