Does anyone seriously think that if a station refused that ad buy, Karoline Leavitt wouldn't tee off on them at that afternoon's White House press briefing and that Trump wouldn't unload and the station and its owners on Truth Social?
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Homeland Security Ads on KNX
- Thread starter imlayguy
- Start date
We're talking about a station owned by Audacy. Right now, there's an FCC investigation regarding a homeland security issue and an Audacy station. I would say it would be a very bad move by any station in that company to refuse to air anything from DHS. I agree completely with the posts above mine. This is not the time for any company that is licensed by the government to say no. At some point, the people will have to decide if this is what they want from government. But right now, this is the reality.
Someone might wanna verify im right, but i even looked over the rules before i made this post.. and i personally dont see something that makes them have to accep[t these ads
The problem is that the rules don't matter anymore.
They are not going to put "or we will call you out as being un-American" in the rules. The unethical retaliation comes later.
Also, not airing them might lead to a Streisand Effect type situation, where the news reports on "Station won't air ads from the government!" and then everyone goes and checks out what the ad was and it spreads more than it would if it just aired with the station trying to not point anything out about it.
And, most recently, 30-some years of experience as a corporate VP of a "Top 10" group United States owner as well as past management in Miami, Birmingham, Richmond and Puerto Rico, USA.
You will note that I have not censored a single post with a progressive perspective. That I will leave to Lance. However, when Frank and I shared active moderation, we constantly exchanged notes about posts before making a decision. We felt that having both perspectives helped us create reasonable limits without being too restrictive.
Under your criteria, yes. But the most recent discussion of the decline in citizen population of CA and the LA radio and TV metros is amply documented. In particular, if you don't use sources that call "Hispanic" a race, the data is very clear.
And those who favor my perspectives found the prior administration to be even more "guilty" of such actions, but it is better to discuss those perspectives with civility than to do the old "they're my marbles and I'm taking them home."
There is also some considerable legal consideration if a station refuses on government ad and then accepts others.
They can refuse to accept all Federal Government ads, but if they select which ones to take and which not to take, they would be in serious trouble.
Points for putting "guilty" in quotes.
thats federal candidates, not federal government ads, as i understood it to be.
No, that applies to brand and product advertising.
In Puerto Rico years ago, the Broadcaster Association tried to "resolve" that stations could take hard liquor ads, but only for Puerto Rican rum. There was litigation and a determination that if you accept any ad in a category, you must accept all of them.
So you can't take ads for Ford cars but not Chrysler products.
The only condition a station can apply is the content of the ad, such as strong language, excessive loudness, sirens, borderline offensive pictures, etc. That can be uniformly applied to all advertisers and all products. Way back in the day, some Beautiful Music stations restricted jingles and aggressive announcing. That was legal, as long as uniformly applied.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I have to side with Paul here in one respect: FCC says equal time and access provisions apply only to "political ads that are paid for and sponsored by legally qualified candidates".
But Paul is wrong about it applying only to federal candidates, as they make no distinction other than "legally qualified under state and/or federal law" to run for office.
DHS' ads are not about a candidate running for office, and the FCC has no mandate that stations accept those, because they are outside the scope of political advertising/
And if you read that fact sheet, it specifically says stations have no right to censor bona fide political advertising content. At all.
So youre telling me a station that airs ford ads has to take chrysler ads? I Call flat out BS. thats a private business... nothing regulates what business ads a station can or cant take. Never heard that in 22 years.
but the station can get in trouble, if not legally.. morally in the community for airing ads that contain a police/ambulance siren in it. Ask me how i know.
The way i interpret the rules after reading them is the DHS would be considered a client, not political and the station can refus business to anyone.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
All I know is that if a candidate is stupid enough to put that in their ad, and the station edits it out, the candidate can file a complaint with the FCC.
You or I wouldn't do it, but heaven help the candidate who would. But the station's hands are tied when it is part of political advertising.
Not having any knowledge of what David cited in Puerto Rico -- for all I know, it was some regulation at the territorial level -- I know of very few stations that have ever carried hard liquor advertising.
Yes, you can not discriminate based on, let's say, the brand. You can not sell to hard liquor brands such as Bonneville did due to the tenets of the LDS, the owners. But you can't restrict advertising within a category to one brand and not another. This is not an FCC issue, it is FTC and Federal laws.
And one can have a policy that "no alarming sirens or noises" are allowed. As long as that rule is uniformly enforced.
Again, this is a rule in trade and commerce, not to the FCC.
There are exceptions: most sports and special events only allow one advertiser in each category. That is legal because any advertiser can compete in price for such exclusivity, even though only one wins.
By stepbrother had that issue with a daily paper in Ohio: they had to take ads from groups that they despised because, were they to exclude, let's say, a Neonazi group, they could not accept the political action committee ads for a health care initiative.
I think you are at a gray area. If a political ad contains, for example, the EAS alert tone, a station can refuse it.
To some extent. We'd have to call counsel on this one, but I've been in a number of meetings "with counsel present" where political ads were returned for revision to a campaign because they violated some law or another.
That dates back to the NAB "Code" which was dropped because it was determined to be a form of collusion. However, in Puerto Rico hard liquor ads have always been broadcast, with the liquor industry self-limiting them to late night. I believe that there is no rule against hard liquor ads except restraint; it's been a while since I was involved in this area but we have to remember that stations are subject to all other laws regarding commerce, employment, etc., besides the FCC rules.
But non-FCC rules apply to commerce in general. There are hundreds of lawyers in DC alone that specialize in "restraint of trade" issues.
But there are issues, such as my example of putting the EAS tones in an ad, political or otherwise, where a station can have a policy, based by other regulations or laws, against things that would create panic. This is the "calling fire in a theater when there is none" concept.
We are talking of trade practices as well as FCC rules. In this case, one can not accept some government ads and not others. The reason I mentioned hard liquor in Puerto Rico is that when the Broadcaster Association tried to add to its code that rum advertising was OK to run but only rum. The other hard liquors threatened a lawsuit and the code was rewritten to suggest hard liquor ads of any kind at night only.
Again, try putting an EAS tone in a political ad and see what happens.
I stupidly produced an ad per a sales persons instructions at a station i was at in PA... for an local ambulance company membership. Guess what the noodle headed sales person asked for in the ad and i just blindly did without thinking? we got a few complaints of people pulling over for a non existant ambulance and switched it out the day we got complaints, and re produced it
one advertiser per category? right.
This sounds like a loaf of frozen rotten moose turd.. cite chapter and verse to me.. i dont buy it. it sounds assinine to me