The NBC affiliate serving the Panama City Beach, Fla., area of the Sunshine State has become the latest television station to receive a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture for failing to timely file its quarterly TV issues/programs lists.
How much is Gray Television paying to the FCC as a result of the transgression?
Based on a review by Video Division Chief Barbara Kreisman, Gray is apparently liable for a $6,000 fine.
The monetary forfeiture is expressly tied to the delinquent issues/programs lists.
The Video Division also found that Gray’s WJHG-7 in Panama City Beach, Fla., also failed to comply with the limits on commercial matter in Children’s programming. That yielded an admonishment, with no fiscal penalty assigned to this flub.
Why a $6,000 fine? WJHG failed to upload in a timely manner to its Online Public Files copies of its TV issue/programs lists for nine quarters. Two reports were more than one year late. There was no explanation for the tardiness.
Why was there only an admonishment regarding the commercial matter?
One could argue that it was barely fleeting. A website address shown during the children’s program “LazyTown” aired for approximately one-half of one second. The website was for a shop, and even though the appearance of the URL came in the show’s closing credits — even for a millisecond — it is still a Commission no-no.
What if the station didn’t insert the URL, and that it is was the program supplier or network that did so? Too bad, the FCC says.
“The Commission has consistently held that reliance on a program’s source or producer for compliance with our Rules and policies will not excuse or mitigate violations which do occur,” Kreisman said.
That’s worrisome news in the wake of a “NFL Emergency Alert” that appeared Sunday on every FOX-owned and FOX-affiliated station in the U.S. It featured the sound of an EAS tone for the first three seconds of the 45-second promotional announcement, seemingly created by and placed by FOX.
