No less than three Emergency Alert System violations against the parent of one of the nation’s Big Four broadcast television networks have been resolved with the signing of a Consent Decree by the Acting Chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau and the entity that could face renewed scrutiny from the Commission under Brendan Carr with respect to its future ownership plan.
Peter S. Hyun, on behalf of the Enforcement Bureau, and Paramount Global EVP and Acting General Counsel Caryn Groce agreed to the terms of a consent decree that terminates the FCC’s investigation into the owner of CBS News & Stations.
That said, there will be a hefty price paid for Paramount, which is agreeing to mail a check in the amount of $244,952 to the U.S. Treasury as a civil penalty.
This action erase all matters with the Commission that could have amount to a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture, and establish a record of non-compliance with the FCC.
The big Treasury Department check is being made to erase an investigation that found CBS responsible for three separate instances in which EAS alert tones were broadcast in regular programming.
The first involves a May 18, 2023 broadcast on the CBS Television Network of an episode of Young Sheldon. The second instance involves an episode of Entertainment Tonight airing on October 25, 2023; the program is distributed by CBS Media Ventures via syndication. The third time an EAS tone was improperly used came on June 6, 2024, and was done by CBS News Radio during a top-of-the-hour broadcast.
In the latter instance, CBS News Radio aired three seconds of an EAS tone as part of a news story concerning an event at Universal Studios. How did that happen? The FCC explained that a single CBS News Radio employee failed to recognize the EAS Attention Signal for what it was, and no other employee of CBS News Radio reviewed the clip before it was distributed for simultaneous broadcast by CBS News Radio’s network affiliated radio stations.
The ET episode featured a 1-second airing “attention signal” that was determined to be indistinguishable from an actual EAS tone.
In the Young Sheldon episode, a scene in which characters were driving in their car in severe weather featured an EAS tone followed by a warning of an impending tornado. As this is scripted dialogue, however true-to-life, non-emergency programming is prohibited from airing the tones.
