Jones College was running Norm Vincent’s “Swingtime’ on its noncommercial WKTZ-FM Jacksonville FL back in 2005. It’s a prerecorded program that Vincent supplied gratis. He also embedded advertising in it, and for that, Jones College has been fined $5K, even though it didn’t get a penny out of the deal.
The commercial messages went out over its airspace and clearly went beyond the underwriting strictures that apply to the non-profit sector. Jones tried to get out of the fine since it did not benefit financially and that it cancelled the program immediately upon being informed of the problem.
That argument failed – the college did get the benefit of the programming, even if it did not receive any cash for the commercials, and they clearly had no place on a noncommercial station. On top of that, Jones College had a prior – an admonishment for airing underwriting announcements that crossed over the line. So the $5K fine sticks.
