NYT: Record Fine Expected for Univision (by FCC)

[Eugene]

Record Fine Expected for Univision

By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: February 24, 2007

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 — When Univision began broadcasting a show three years ago
about the misadventures of 11-year-old identical twin girls who swapped identities
after discovering they had been separated at birth, it characterized the episodes
as educational programming for children.

That decision is expected to cost Univision, the nation’s largest Hispanic network,
$24 million in what would be the largest fine the Federal Communications Commission
has ever imposed against any company. The penalty is also expected to send a strong
signal to broadcasters that they will be expected to meet their required quota of
shows that educate and inform children, after years of permissive oversight in this
area.

The commission has decided to impose the heavy fine — disclosed by Kevin J. Martin,
the chairman of the commission, in an interview — as a tough rebuke to Univision for
claiming to meet its obligations to broadcast educational children’s programs by
showing the Latino soap opera “Complices al Rescate” (“Friends to the Rescue”) and
other so-called telenovelas.

-snip-

It also represents an unusually aggressive enforcement of the 1996 regulations that
interpreted the Children’s Television Act. Those regulations, adopted after some
broadcasters characterized cartoons like “The Flintstones” and “The Jetsons” to be
educational programs, imposed more substantive requirements on the networks as
they comply with the mandate to broadcast at least three hours a week of programs
of intellectual value to young people.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/24/business/24fcc.html?ref=business

[Bright Eyes]

1. The fellas at the freaking FCC?

LOL at family guy :)

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. A big fine - but how difficult is it to show 3 hours a week of educational programming?

Import a couple of nature programmes, putting on a voiceover if necessary, get someone to rewrite the news bulletin as 10 minutes a day in easy-to-understand language without excessive gore of sex, and you're there.