WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement and Media Bureaus have entered into a consent decree with Sinclair to resolve a variety of investigations related to station license renewal applications, closed captioning rules and violations of regulations governing kids' programming.
As part of the decree, Sinclair will pay a $500,000 civil penalty and has agreed to a two-year compliance plan to ensure violations don’t occur in the future. As part of the settlement, Sinclair did not have to admit it had violated FCC regulations.
More specifically, the Consent Decree resolves a Notice of Apparent Liability and Forfeiture Order involving compliance with rules that limit the amount of commercial matter that commercial television stations may air during children’s programming.
In September, the FCC released a forfeiture order against 19 station groups covering 113 TV stations for a total $3,334,000 in fines for violations of rules regarding children’s programming. As previously reported, the order, which rejected broadcasters’ arguments seeking to reduce penalties originally proposed in 2022, ordered fines against the station groups that included a $2.652 million fine on Sinclair. The newest consent decree resolves Sinclair’s violations.
The settlement also resolves violations of rules requiring stations to timely upload copies of issues/programs lists and commercial limits certifications to the online public inspection file; an investigation into failing to file a license renewal application no later than the first day of the fourth full calendar month prior to the license expiration date of TV translator station K33MJ-D, Pahrump, Nevada; and by failing to pass through closed captioning and monitoring equipment and the signal transmission involved in the transmission of closed captioning on video programming received and aired by WUHF, Rochester, New York, the FCC said.
“We greatly appreciate the constructive and diligent work of the Commission’s staff, and we are pleased that we were able to reach a mutually acceptable resolution of these issues," Sinclair said in a statement. "With these matters resolved, we look forward to continuing to serve our viewers with our award-winning local journalism and our commitment to our communities.”
