Gadfly, I like that.
Mister Corporate Radio has made his case 8 times..
Now, I'll make mine, where it matters. And as to the amount of time I spent doing this, heck, I can write this one in my sleep:
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554
Los Angeles CA
5 Feb. 2008
On Sunday, Feb. 3 2008, radio station KFWB in Los Angeles, and CBS Radio, as the licensee of its broadcast station, aired at least seven lengthy infomercials disguised as news broadcasting in direct violation of §73.1212 and the FCC’s order of April 2005 regarding the proper identification of commercially-supplied news program material. I wish to file a formal complaint with the FCC against CBS Radio and KFWB.
KFWB is normally programmed as an all-news radio station, and in this unprecedented broadcast blended its normal programming into the paid content so as to deliberately confuse listeners into not knowing when bona fide news began and ended, and when paid commercial material in the form of a prerecorded fake call-in program advertising a home mortgage sales operation. Further, this brokerage was fraudulently and intentionally represented by the station as to be an impartial source of counseling and advice for persons needing impartial advice, when in fact it was a company doing business originating new loan packages.
It must be stated that the petitioner fully realizes that infomercials are legal under certain conditions, and that this complaint does not challenge that. Rather, we point of the flagrant and apparently-obvious attempt by the licensees of KFWB and their employees to circumvent, ignore or steamroll over the wall that the FCC has erected between program material and commercial material. The fact that KFWB is an all-news station, licensed to CBS Radio, makes these offenses even more gregarious.
During the hour between 7 and 8 a.m. on Sunday 3 February 2008, the station’s normal news, weather, sports and traffic programming was interspersed with segments, most of them lasting eight minutes, in which a “mortgage expert” purportedly took telephone calls from listeners to give them advice. At no time going into or out of any of these segments was it identified as paid commercial content. The name of the sponsor may or may not have been used during some of the segments but was never announced as the sponsor of the paid announcement. Further, the name of the sponsor was misleadingly broadcast as a resource for callers to gain assistance and counseling to avoid the foreclosure of their homes, and was not disclosed as a private entity seeking to sell mortgages.
Further, each infomercial did not indicate that the sponsor was licensed or registered under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act as defined by Section 50002 and required by Section 50308 of the California Financial Code. All radio advertisements for mortgage brokers in California must under state law include an announcement that the broker is registered under the CRMLA. These advertisements and program-length infomercials on KFWB did not include such announcements. The station cannot claim these eight-minute segments were “commercials” because if they were, they would have had to have the CRMLA announcement, which was not done. Although the FCC is not responsible for enforcing the California Residential Mortgage Act, the fact that these mandatory disclosure announcements were not made indicates that KFWB and the advertiser wished to conceal the true nature of these commercial segments as program segments.
Shockingly, the station interspersed actual news, traffic, weather and sports into this broadcast with no delineation or discrimination between content categories in a method that confused the listener, likely deliberately. Although the station claims that an announcement as to the coming of a paid program was made at 7:06, no such announcement was made when that first commercial segment ended, or when any of the subsequent 8-minute infomercials began or ended.
At 7:58, the last fake call-in segment ended and a traditional commercial aired, also for the mortgage broker but using a different voice. It was only after that short spot ended that an announcement was made by KFWB with words to the effect that “the preceding program was a paid commercial announcement that does not necessarily reflect the views of KFWB or CBS Radio.” But that announcement was separated from the suspect content by an actual commercial and was not linked in any way to the actual paid infomercials, and could in no way be associated with the fake newscast material. In other words, the lone announcement after the infomercial parade ended was aired not after each infomercial, but followed a spot, thus distancing itself from the infomericals in a deceptive attempt to conceal the true nature of the fake newscasts.
Surveys show that KFWB has a short time-spent-listening average, a fact that it actually boasts about in the slogan it has used for 40 years: “Just Give Us 22 Minutes and We’ll Give You The World.” Any listener joining the broadcast at any time after 7:06 would hear seemless integration between bona fide news coverage and ersatz news coverage. with no audio cue or announcement to differentiate between sponsor-scripted “news” and actual program material news. As far as a I can ascertain, this is the first infomercial that KFWB has aired since the FCC legalized them two decades ago. Because the station was flipping back and forth between programming and infomercial, any listener joining the station any time after the purported 7:06 a.m. announcement would have no knowledge before, during or after these segments that he or she had just heard an advertisement disguised as the regular news programming.
It should also be pointed out that KFWB’s format never has commercial “stop sets” of more than two minutes, and usually has only 60 seconds of advertising between news segments. Although the FCC does not regulate the length of commercials, the fact that these unannounced-infomercials were 8 minutes in length shows that they were not intended by the station to be perceived as commercial “spots” but were intended to be perceived by listeners as program material similar to what the station normally broadcasts.
KFWB possibly violated Section 73.1212 (a), ”Sponsorship identification”, in that it transmitted matter for which money, service, or other valuable consideration was either directly or indirectly paid or promised to, without announcing that such matter was sponsored and furnished, either in whole or in part. Except for the first segment, which aired from approximately 7:06-7:12, the station did not announce who or on whose behalf such consideration was supplied.
In possible violation of § 73.1212 (b), KFWB apparently did not exercise reasonable diligence to obtain from its employees, and from other persons with whom it deals directly in connection with any matter for broadcast, information to enable the licensee to make the announcement required by Section 73.1212.
The sponsorship announcement required by Section 73.1212 (e) did not state the fact that each segment of the broadcast matter was sponsored, paid for or furnished. None of the segments fully and fairly disclosed the true identity of the person or persons, or other entity by whom or on whose behalf such payment is made. Specifically, these announcements were not made as the station transitioned from paid commercial into actual news programming at the following approximate PDT times, as well as possibly other nearby times, on the morning of Sunday, Feb. 3:
(1) 7:12
(2) 7:19
(3) 7:28
(4) 7:40
(5) 7:52
and (6) 7:58 a.m.
The station also did not properly disclose it was transitioning from news into paid advertising disguised as news at the following approximate PDT times, as well as possibly other nearby times, on the morning of Sunday, Feb. 3:
(1) 7:13
(2) 7:22
(3) 7:31
(4) 7:42
and (5) 7:54 a.m.
As a mere listener to KFWB, these observations are not normally kept by me and in fact were noted as I was driving, so the times are approximate.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if there is more information needed. As a listener, I note that CBS Radio has abandoned its longstanding standards and practices, flaunted FCC regulations, and trashed the trust it has built up in decades of public service as a private trustee of the public’s airwaves.
Sincerely,
John McNary
Los Angeles CA 90066
I just hope that IF there is a major news story breaking, there is someone LIVE at the station to break in with live coverage. I wonder if the mighty KNX 1070 will follow suit anytime soon?