At 2:20pm Eastern on Oct. 3, 2018, FEMA conducted a live test of the Emergency Alert System. The familiar EAS tone was heard on stations across the U.S., including an Entercom Hot Adult Contemporary station in New York.
It seems listeners of this station heard a similar tone during the station’s morning show earlier that day. A whistleblower informed the Enforcement Bureau that the EAS tone aired as part of a skit lampooning the test set for later that day.
Now, Entercom faces a proposed $20,000 fine for the wakeup whoops.
The transgression involves Karen Carson, morning host at WNEW-FM 102.7 in New York.
According to a complaint sent to the FCC, the Carson-helmed morning show — incorrectly referred to as Karen & Jeffrey in the complaint — lampooned a nationwide Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) test conducted in the 2pm Eastern hour that day.
However, Jeffrey Jameson had departed as Carson’s co-host in July 2018. Since that time, Carson’s show has been a largely solo effort.
A letter of inquiry was sent on June 27, 2019, by Christopher Sova, Deputy Chief of Investigations and Hearings Division in the Enforcement Bureau, to Andrew Sutor, Entercom’s EVP/General Counsel.
On August 29, Sutor responded, confirming that the skit aired on WNEW. He explained that the skit was produced by a station employee who included the EAS Header Code in the initial version of the skit. After the host of the radio show (Curtis) and the WNEW Program Director identified the use of the EAS Header Code as problematic and something
that must be removed from the segment, the unnamed employee replaced it with approximately one second of the Attention Signal. The WNEW PD subsequently approved the revised segment for air, and it was broadcast at 7:52am on Oct. 3, 2018.
That, it seems, was still a violation of the FCC’s rules.
“Entercom’s use of the Attention Signal in a parody of the first nationwide test of the EAS
and WEA is specifically the type of behavior section 11.45 seeks to prevent,” Enforcement Bureau Chief Rosemary Harold said in a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture adopted and released Tuesday (4/7) that seeks a $20,000 fine for WNEW’s mistake.
Harold continued, “The unauthorized and inappropriate use of the EAS Tones may confuse people or lead to alert fatigue, resulting in people ignoring potentially life-saving warnings and information. We find that an average listener could reasonably mistake the airing of part of the Attention Signal for an actual EAS alert. The length of the transmission is not controlling in our liability determination.”
As of July 2018, Entercom/New York SVP/Programming Jim Ryan and Asst. PD Fabi Pimental were integral figures in control of the on-air content at WNEW-FM. Pimental exited in March 2019, succeeded by Michelle Stevens.
With Harold stressing that Section 11.45 “specifically prohibits such appropriation because non-emergency uses of the EAS Tones actually dilute their real meaning over time,” and that Entercom willfully violated this rule, a higher fine was imposed than the $8,000 base forfeiture for such violations.
Why?
“Even though the instant violation was limited in duration to a single transmission on a
single day and apparently caused no downstream EAS activation, the fact that Entercom’s programming reached potentially vast audiences increases the extent and gravity of the violation and therefore supports an upward adjustment,” Harold concluded. “In this regard, the station’s audience reach is considerable.”
Harold noted that WNEW-FM is ranked No. 11 in the Nielsen Audio ratings for New York; with the sale of WPLJ-FM by Cumulus to Educational Media Foundation, it is the lone station in its format based in New York City.
Another consideration by Harold in bumping the forfeiture from $8,000 to $20,000 is the fact that Entercom did not voluntarily disclose the violation.
Now, Entercom is obligated to pay the $20,000 fine, or argue for its cancellation or reduction in value.
An Entercom spokesperson did not immediately respond to RBR+TVBR‘s request for comment.
The NAL is the latest in a string of unwelcome news for Entercom, which saw further erosion of its stock price in Tuesday’s trading. With a 5.3% decline, ETM finished the day at $0.7694. Only one in Entercom history have shares been at this point: October 2008, at the height of the “Great Recession.”
