The FCC has fined five television stations a combined $31,000 for violating rules involving children TV programming.
Viacom’s Dallas-Ft. Worth station, KTXA-TV, was fined $18,000 for failing to follow the commission’s record-keeping rules involving TV commercial limits in children’s programming. The fine covered three violations. The station claimed the violations were due to “human error and inadvertence,” though the FCC called them “willful and repeated.”
KSNB-TV, a Collins Broadcasting station located in Superior, NE, was fined $10,000 for willfully failing to publicize the existence and location of the station’s reports involving children’s programming. In its license renewal application, the broadcaster admitted it had never publicized the reports before December 2005.
KVVU-TV in Henderson, NV, was fined $3000 after the station admitted in its license renewal that it had failed to publicize its children’s TV records after the second quarter of 2002. It resumed displaying the records after the first quarter of 2006. The FCC said the violation was apparently “willful and repeated.”
KGPX-TV, owned by Paxson Spokane, and WPXQ-TV, owned by Ocean State Television, both received warning from the FCC. Both stations are located in West Palm Beach, Florida. The FCC said the stations did not provide the proper information involving their children’s programs to TV program guide publishers.
All the proposed fines are subject to appeal. The broadcasters all admitted to the violations.
