Enforcement Actions

Question: How important is the timely payment of annual FCC regulatory fees? Answer: For a radio station, it is of life and death importance—the Commission recently initiated a license revocation...

An FCC fine levied this week against a broadcaster for “premature construction” serves as a good reminder—and cautionary tale—for stations that may be making (or are planning to make) changes...

The Commission last week released a Public Notice (“Notice”) that provided a not-so-subtle hint to any radio stations that have yet to transition to the Online Public Inspection File (“OPIF”):...

Several days ago, Reuters reported that a television station ownership group was going to be fined a significant amount of money for violations of the sponsorship identification laws.  On December...

The FCC’s random Equal Employment Opportunity (“EEO”) audits are not just busy work!  They can sometimes lead to fines for broadcasters, and that’s exactly what happened recently as the Commission...

A recent FCC case illustrates how seriously the FCC takes its rules.  So seriously, in fact, that the FCC not only fined a station but also renewed the station’s license...

Day-to-day broadcast operations are subject to a wide variety of FCC regulations, each of which presents an opportunity for an operational slip-up that may result in FCC enforcement action.  In...

The Commission has imposed a large penalty—finally—on a group of cable operators for unauthorized retransmission of the broadcast signals of six different television stations.  The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau has imposed...

The FCC has continued enforcement against misuse of Emergency Alert System (“EAS”) sounds by imposing staggering fines for violations of the Commission’s rules prohibiting the broadcast of actual or simulated...

The FCC recently fined two broadcasters $20,000 each for violations of the Commission’s EEO rules. In one instance, the Commission fined a television broadcaster in large part for failing to...