The FCC continues to take a very dim view of television stations which overload children’s programming with advertising, even by a few seconds, and it has a special problem when a character in a program shows up in an ad – since children do not distinguish effectively between the program and the commercial, that infraction creates what the FCC calls a program-length commercial. The limits are 10.5 minutes per hour on weekends and 12 minutes per hour on weekdays. One, KIDZ-LP Abilene TX, was part of a low power group which was missing documentation at most of the stations, along with having a handful of commercial overages. It was hit with a $20K fine. WLFL-TV Raleigh NC has several overages, including program-length violations involving Batman and Pokemon. It was hit for $16.5K. WATE-TV Knoxville TN had several overages, with none over 15 seconds. Its FCC hit amounted to $8K.
