Give weather report, get fined.

CBL4

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As dangerous thunderstorms and tornado conditions bore down on Washington on May 25, 2004, local weather broadcasters told viewers in certain areas they should take cover but failed to relay the same information in closed captions, the FCC reported. Under federal law, broadcasters are required to provide emergency information in both audio and visual form, whether by closed captioning or a similar presentation.

The FCC investigation found that, at 9:02 p.m., WRC meteorologist Bob Ryan told viewers to move away from windows and toward a bathroom or basement if they sensed high winds but failed to provide the information in any visual form.

An $8,000 fine is proposed against WJLA, which failed to display closed-caption information during one storm report.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/26/AR2005052601597.html
 
I didn't realize FCC was so proactive. Doesn't someone has to submit a complaint before they investigate anything?
 
Originally posted byGrammatron
I didn't realize FCC was so proactive. Doesn't someone has to submit a complaint before they investigate anything?
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One person did file a complaint

One viewer wrote to the FCC: "[Fox] cut into the screen during 'American Idol' for news about the weather. From this visual (with no captions), it look[ed] like the bad weather might be in Maryland. I was totally confused."
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CBL
 
Is must have been a slow day at the FCC. Are they getting tired of chasing down Howard Stern complaints?

Charlie (hey now) Monoxide
 
The thread title is misleading. The station was fined for violating emergency information rules, not for giving a weather report. I think deaf people should be informed of such emergencies.
 
The thread title is misleading. The station was fined for violating emergency information rules, not for giving a weather report. I think deaf people should be informed of such emergencies.
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Yes and no.

If the stations had done nothing, they would not have been fined. Because they warned "only" 99+% of their viewers, they were fined. This is warped thinking.

My guess is that TV stations have closed captioning people working only when they are planning to use them. At other times, they cannot run the machines properly. This was a rare weather event and they had no one available.

What are the stations' choices in this kind of situation?
1) They can always have someone on call which costs lots of money.
2) Warn 99+% of the people and get fined.
3) Do nothing.
The financially sensible decision is to warn no one.

When you have perverse incentives, you will get perverse results.

(Admittedly a long term solution is to train more people at the station to use the equipment but I imagine this is expensive. Also people who rarely use equipment are likely to screw them up which will lead more CC outages. If this happens, is the TV station supposed to go off the air to prevent fines?)

CBL
 
If I were the station manager, I would certainly appeal this fine. As CBL4 points out, they probably wouldn't have been fined if they had done nothing. That's a "good faith" effort to me.
 
They didn't comply to federal laws regarding emergency signals. I don't really see the problem. If they decided not to relay the federal emergency signal, wouldn't they have gotten in trouble for that?
 
Originally posted by thaiboxerken
They didn't comply to federal laws regarding emergency signals. I don't really see the problem. If they decided not to relay the federal emergency signal, wouldn't they have gotten in trouble for that?
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I do not think it would have been against the law to do nothing but I could be wrong. The article says:

Under federal law, broadcasters are required to provide emergency information in both audio and visual form, whether by closed captioning or a similar presentation.
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This seems to support your contention but I am not sure. I guess it depends on the definition of an emergency.

Typically I have seen this type of warning crawl across the bottom of my screen. I guess this is illegal as well because it is not audio.

In any case, a warning instead of fine is the only sensible thing to do.

CBL
 
thaiboxerken said:
They didn't comply to federal laws regarding emergency signals. I don't really see the problem. If they decided not to relay the federal emergency signal, wouldn't they have gotten in trouble for that?
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They didn't receive a federal emergency signal - this whole warning originated within the station itself. They do have (mostly) automated equipment for relaying the EBS mesages they receive - this wasn't one of those.
 
It's probably a bit too severe of a punishment. Then again, maybe it's not the first offense.
 
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