14 ms·

The FCC Fined 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' 'The Walking Dead' for Use of Emergency Tones

100 points by LinuxBender 7y ago

dacohenii 7y ago
You better believe it! EAS is no joke, and FCC is right to take a hard line. Not very many people know that tone contains data. (It's pretty interesting, really; see wiki link below.) Broadcasters have an EAS box that listens for alert tones on other frequencies and repeats it over the broadcast frequency (and others may listen, etc). Among other things, the data in the tone affects how far it propagates, so if someone plays a tone over the air that's set to propagate nationwide, it's kind of a problem. This isn't the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last. Source: I worked on the engineering team at my college radio station (WSBF-FM Clemson). EAS header: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#EAS_header https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#EAS_hea...
- eckza 7y ago
  This is why in-band signaling is very, very bad. See also: phone phreaking.
  - finnthehuman 7y ago
    > This is why in-band signaling is very, very bad. The system was designed for resilience in the face of disasters up to and including nuclear attack. In this case low complexity in a single channel is a feature, not a bug.
    - Retric 7y ago
      Adding even just a data time stamp would easily let you filter accidental bad data.
      - jjoonathan 7y ago
        I sincerely hope that none of my equipment would filter an emergency message with a "bad" timestamp.
      - tantalor 7y ago
        Ever see a VCR blinking "12:00"?
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - eckza 7y ago
      That’s a strong argument. I rescind my statement.
  - tenebrisalietum 7y ago
    But it's better than nothing when you have a wide network already in place and are too cheap to extend it. For one-way wide area communications it might not be a bad tradeoff. AT&T had an issue with blueboxing because people were making free calls on it.
- schoen 7y ago
  Could people create a synthetic simulated EAS tone that contains no data and couldn't be decoded by any EAS equipment, but that would still remind a human viewer of the EAS tone? Would that be OK with the FCC, or are they also concerned with human listeners recognizing the sound and believing that an alert is imminent? I worked on the engineering team for my high school radio station, but we didn't learn much about how EAS worked, other than that it was mandatory and was replacing EBS. :-)
  - pqoef 7y ago
    ¶4 from the article: To protect the purpose of the warning system, the agency has a rule against use of EAS tones or their simulations -- except in actual emergencies, authorized tests or qualified public service announcements. ¶1 from the linked order: To preserve and protect the unique purpose of the EAS Tones, the Commission enforces laws prohibiting the use of the tones, or simulations of them, except in actual emergencies, authorized tests of the EAS, or qualified PSAs. Answer to your question, no, the FCC is not okay with simulations of the EAS tone.
    - schoen 7y ago
      Thanks!
  - finnthehuman 7y ago
    >Could people create a synthetic simulated EAS tone that contains no data and couldn't be decoded by any EAS equipment, Yup, you could generate two different sine waves that would seem reminiscent of the EAS two-tone alert and be near indistinguishable to all but an FM engineer and forwarding hardware. The SAME header could be invalid data, for a non-existent region code, or out of spec in some other way. > Would that be OK with the FCC, or are they also concerned with human listeners recognizing the sound and believing that an alert is imminent? No, if it was meant to be confused with the EAS tone, it's just as if you used the EAS tone. The FCC is a step ahead of "clever" ways of skirting important rules. WiFi deauth attacks are still "malicious interference" even though they're layer 2 attacks that don't "jam" the band.
- thrill 7y ago
  WizzBiff! - one of my favorite late night stations oh so long ago.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- malandrew 7y ago
  If tones contain data and data is speech, does that not protect their use for entertainment purposes on free speech grounds? This seems analogous to the free speech issues over the RSA encryption/decryption algorithms during the 90s.
  - haxton 7y ago
    No. For the same reason why you cannot go into a crowded movie theatre and yell "FIRE!"
    - tantalor 7y ago
      The EAS case here is more analagous to the original "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast.
    - malandrew 7y ago
      How does broadcasting this tone create a clear and present danger? It's merely a call to attention and then you need to listen to and process the subsequent message. The tone itself does not create a clear and present danger, but the subsequent message may. There's no notion of panic or stampede with this tone, it only communicates "hey, listen up, there's something that may be important for you to know about". I'm sure that many of those living in America on HN have been subject to EAS messages that were not of serious concern since it's used pretty liberally for even minor concerns like a tropical storm. It's also worth know about the Supreme Court case (Schenck v United States) that lead to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr's opinion that lead to this legal test, since the issue at hand in that case would most likely be protected by the 1st amendment today. Furthermore, Holmes eventually reversed his position in Abrams v United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the... No reasonable person would look at any of the examples where a fine has been issued over use of the EAS signal and conclude that any of those artistic statements were even close to creating a clear and present danger.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        "How does broadcasting this tone create a clear and present danger? It's merely a call to attention and then you need to listen to and process the subsequent message." False alarms can create a danger because they condition people not to take an alarm seriously. Even if people are pretty conscientious about treating alarms as if they are real, very few of them will continue doing so against peer pressure.
- nickpsecurity 7y ago
  I agree they should. One time I looked at the TV hearing that with full attention. It was a local lawyer doing a Superbowl ad or something using it exactly for that purpose. We shouldn't treat some extremely-important warnings in a way that creates a mistrust of them. I thought that day he should be fined large enough to absorb the winnings of the cases it brought him. Also, I halfway gave his team props for clever marketing. It worked...
  - underwater 7y ago
    There is an irony in a lawyer flagrantly breaking the law to attract customers.
- iforgotpassword 7y ago
  So I assume in all those cases it was really just the sound without the header, otherwise that would have gone hilariously wrong. How come this happens again and again though? I'd assume someone who does research on how to generate that tone would also learn that it's illegal to broadcast it. Or if it's in some sfx database the channel or studio has access to, you'd assume it would have an according warning notice attached to it.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
    They may have literally pulled the sound from a recording on YouTube, though.
akeck 7y ago
I also wish there was a rule preventing the use of motor vehicle horns and emergency services siren sounds on any radio station. People are tired driving home and may react unpredictably in dense traffic to sirens and horns on the radio.
- runevault 7y ago
  Every time I hear something that sounds like an emergency vehicle on the radio I think of this. Thankfully on my work commute I mostly listen to podcasts so rarely run into this on my roughest drive, but it's still a terrible idea.
- m463 7y ago
  I agree. Also, I think there should be a law regarding the new electronic billboards, especially at night. They should have a smooth transition over a period of say 10 seconds, instead of instantaneously changing / flashing and distracting drivers.
  - kgwxd 7y ago
    They should be outlawed completely.
- mwexler 7y ago
  Seconded a thousand times. After I hear one and calm down, I'm always running in my head how I'll explain to the cop that I ran off the road reacting to a siren letting me know that "prices just can't get any lower!".
- tiredwired 7y ago
  The thing that startled me in the past was a woman screaming in a radio commercial. That was around Halloween though. I still had to look around and see if someone was in distress outside.
parliament32 7y ago
EAS tones were also used in the trailer for "Olympus Has Fallen" in 2014, the networks were fined $1.9 million. https://web.archive.org/web/20141231204456/http://bigstory.ap.org/article/false-alarm-olympus-movie-ad-draws-19m-fine https://web.archive.org/web/20141231204456/http://bigstory.a...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sbhn 7y ago
I better say something stupid on this thread to raise its importance. Remember the more down votes i get, the louder it gets. My phone talks to my sonos which talks to my alexa which talks to my nest which talks to my tv which talks to my router which talks to my drone. Yeah signals, so spooky. And probably Chinese spooky signals, yeah HN crowd gets shivers down there spines. Look out for the spooky Chinese signals, they're out to get you. HN told me so.
crazygringo 7y ago
This is the kind of thing it's easy to imagine anyone doing. If you're a comedy or TV writer... it would probably never occur to you that this aspect of real life is illegal to reproduce on TV. (It certainly wouldn't occur to me.) Seeing as this has happened to at least 3 prominent TV channels... it feels like the failure here is at a much higher level -- kind of like, if an intern wipes your prod database, it's not the intern's fault but the fault of your processes that allowed it to even be a possibility. So... when did the FCC pass this rule? How did it make sure every broadcaster knew about it? Why didn't broadcasters add it to their content review process? Where did the failure occur? I mean, it's not like this was a cost/benefit calculation the broadcasters made to try to get away with something -- it's obviously just out of sheer ignorance. So are the lawyers at the broadcasters totally incompetent or not being listened to... or is it the FCC's fault here for not ensuring the right people at each and every broadcaster actually found out about it in the first place and added it to their review processes?
- ars 7y ago
  > So... when did the FCC pass this rule? It existed in 1934: https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf (search for 325). > How did it make sure every broadcaster knew about it? Broadcast TV only started in 1928, I think this law predates most of the current networks.
- fluxsauce 7y ago
  I worked at a couple radio stations doing production and engineering. In short, EAS is a legal requirement and not a joke. I have no doubt that production staff did it out of ignorance and that nobody caught onto it until it actually aired. I bet that control room's air turned blue as it aired.
paulpauper 7y ago
I guess that would set the record for the most expensive royalty payment ever. #2 The Beatles #1 Emergency broadcast sounds
walrus01 7y ago
While on the topic of causing a "boy who cried wolf" problem with emergency tones. All of the Amber alerts on cellular networks in Ontario are currently being sent as "presidential alert" priority level. On many phones' OSes you can disable audible amber alerts but not presidential alerts. Some people in network engineering at the mobile network operators in Canada screwed up big time. https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/amber-alerts-1.5137889 https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/amber-alerts-1.5137889 https://globalnews.ca/news/5683167/amber-alert-system/ https://globalnews.ca/news/5683167/amber-alert-system/ Presidential alerts are only supposed to be used for absolute max priority events, such as literally a nuclear missile attack, a fire storm that's about to engulf a town, tsunami that will affect hundreds of thousands of people, etc.
- philwelch 7y ago
  Canada doesn’t even have a President! I believe in the US “Presidential alerts“ actually require approval from POTUS. What’s the intended protocol in Canada?
  - theluketaylor 7y ago
    The entire process was badly bungled. The FCC designed a nicely tiered alert system for mobile phones. The CRTC then adopted the same system but tossed out all but the "Presidential" level. Then they delegated responsibility for what to alert about to local authorities. The end result is cops in Burlington sending end of the world alerts that can't be silenced to people 1500 km and 15 hours away in Thunder Bay about events that took place 2 hours ago. It's complete lunacy. The tone is so disruptive and loud people are calling 911 to complain. It's so jarring I'm shocked it hasn't resulted in fatal car collisions. I've been in the states during amber alerts and even natural disaster warnings and the process is simple and effective. The alerts come in and you action them if warranted. Ours are literally the end of the world tone no matter what.
    - garaetjjte 7y ago
      How those alerts work technically? They are SMS with special header or entirely separate message type? (eg. in Poland alerts are sent as plain old SMS)
aaron695 7y ago
Interesting I've never heard the real ones. I thought it would be like the movies, but it seems they have been censoring/stylising them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF9bv_UldvE&list=PLpJqohVquXQ0vRkPm9qm98mkXTLuxdcQ5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF9bv_UldvE&list=PLpJqohVquX...
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
These fines don't sound all that hefty? A $395,000 fine would be absolutely devastating for even an abnormally wealthy individual, but I've got to imagine that producing a professional television show comes with much higher costs.
- dahart 7y ago
  Jimmy Kimmel is an abnormally wealthy individual, and according to my 10 second lazy Google search, $400k is less than 2 weeks’ pay for him personally. For the Kimmel show production company, or ABC, or Disney, it’s closer to peanuts. I’ll speculate wildly that $400k might not even offset the Kimmel show’s ad revenue for a single night. Edit: another lazy Google search says a 30 second ad spot on Kimmel runs about $20k. That means they hit $400k with ~10 minutes of commercial? https://www.adweek.com/tv-video/new-data-shows-just-how-much-advertisers-are-paying-commercials-late-night-167634/ https://www.adweek.com/tv-video/new-data-shows-just-how-much...
  - brewdad 7y ago
    Which feels like an entirely appropriate fine given it's a first offense and presumably wasn't done with malicious intent. If Kimmel decides to go ahead and make this a regular segment and flaunt the rules, I would expect the fines to multiply accordingly.
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      I think the fine itself is perfectly appropriate for all the reasons you listed. However, I don't understand why the article said the fine will "cost parent company ABC dearly."
cush 7y ago
This is a solid rule. Glad it's enforced so strictly.

100 points by LinuxBender 7y ago

You better believe it! EAS is no joke, and FCC is right to take a hard line. Not very many people know that tone contains data. (It's pretty interesting, really; see wiki link below.) Broadcasters have an EAS box that listens for alert tones on other frequencies and repeats it over the broadcast frequency (and others may listen, etc). Among other things, the data in the tone affects how far it propagates, so if someone plays a tone over the air that's set to propagate nationwide, it's kind of a problem. This isn't the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last. Source: I worked on the engineering team at my college radio station (WSBF-FM Clemson). EAS header: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#EAS_header https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#EAS_hea...

eckza 7y ago
This is why in-band signaling is very, very bad. See also: phone phreaking.
- finnthehuman 7y ago
  > This is why in-band signaling is very, very bad. The system was designed for resilience in the face of disasters up to and including nuclear attack. In this case low complexity in a single channel is a feature, not a bug.
  - Retric 7y ago
    Adding even just a data time stamp would easily let you filter accidental bad data.
    - jjoonathan 7y ago
      I sincerely hope that none of my equipment would filter an emergency message with a "bad" timestamp.
    - tantalor 7y ago
      Ever see a VCR blinking "12:00"?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - eckza 7y ago
    That’s a strong argument. I rescind my statement.
- tenebrisalietum 7y ago
  But it's better than nothing when you have a wide network already in place and are too cheap to extend it. For one-way wide area communications it might not be a bad tradeoff. AT&T had an issue with blueboxing because people were making free calls on it.
schoen 7y ago
Could people create a synthetic simulated EAS tone that contains no data and couldn't be decoded by any EAS equipment, but that would still remind a human viewer of the EAS tone? Would that be OK with the FCC, or are they also concerned with human listeners recognizing the sound and believing that an alert is imminent? I worked on the engineering team for my high school radio station, but we didn't learn much about how EAS worked, other than that it was mandatory and was replacing EBS. :-)
- pqoef 7y ago
  ¶4 from the article: To protect the purpose of the warning system, the agency has a rule against use of EAS tones or their simulations -- except in actual emergencies, authorized tests or qualified public service announcements. ¶1 from the linked order: To preserve and protect the unique purpose of the EAS Tones, the Commission enforces laws prohibiting the use of the tones, or simulations of them, except in actual emergencies, authorized tests of the EAS, or qualified PSAs. Answer to your question, no, the FCC is not okay with simulations of the EAS tone.
  - schoen 7y ago
    Thanks!
- finnthehuman 7y ago
  >Could people create a synthetic simulated EAS tone that contains no data and couldn't be decoded by any EAS equipment, Yup, you could generate two different sine waves that would seem reminiscent of the EAS two-tone alert and be near indistinguishable to all but an FM engineer and forwarding hardware. The SAME header could be invalid data, for a non-existent region code, or out of spec in some other way. > Would that be OK with the FCC, or are they also concerned with human listeners recognizing the sound and believing that an alert is imminent? No, if it was meant to be confused with the EAS tone, it's just as if you used the EAS tone. The FCC is a step ahead of "clever" ways of skirting important rules. WiFi deauth attacks are still "malicious interference" even though they're layer 2 attacks that don't "jam" the band.
thrill 7y ago
WizzBiff! - one of my favorite late night stations oh so long ago.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
malandrew 7y ago
If tones contain data and data is speech, does that not protect their use for entertainment purposes on free speech grounds? This seems analogous to the free speech issues over the RSA encryption/decryption algorithms during the 90s.
- haxton 7y ago
  No. For the same reason why you cannot go into a crowded movie theatre and yell "FIRE!"
  - tantalor 7y ago
    The EAS case here is more analagous to the original "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    How does broadcasting this tone create a clear and present danger? It's merely a call to attention and then you need to listen to and process the subsequent message. The tone itself does not create a clear and present danger, but the subsequent message may. There's no notion of panic or stampede with this tone, it only communicates "hey, listen up, there's something that may be important for you to know about". I'm sure that many of those living in America on HN have been subject to EAS messages that were not of serious concern since it's used pretty liberally for even minor concerns like a tropical storm. It's also worth know about the Supreme Court case (Schenck v United States) that lead to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr's opinion that lead to this legal test, since the issue at hand in that case would most likely be protected by the 1st amendment today. Furthermore, Holmes eventually reversed his position in Abrams v United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the... No reasonable person would look at any of the examples where a fine has been issued over use of the EAS signal and conclude that any of those artistic statements were even close to creating a clear and present danger.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      "How does broadcasting this tone create a clear and present danger? It's merely a call to attention and then you need to listen to and process the subsequent message." False alarms can create a danger because they condition people not to take an alarm seriously. Even if people are pretty conscientious about treating alarms as if they are real, very few of them will continue doing so against peer pressure.
nickpsecurity 7y ago
I agree they should. One time I looked at the TV hearing that with full attention. It was a local lawyer doing a Superbowl ad or something using it exactly for that purpose. We shouldn't treat some extremely-important warnings in a way that creates a mistrust of them. I thought that day he should be fined large enough to absorb the winnings of the cases it brought him. Also, I halfway gave his team props for clever marketing. It worked...
- underwater 7y ago
  There is an irony in a lawyer flagrantly breaking the law to attract customers.
iforgotpassword 7y ago
So I assume in all those cases it was really just the sound without the header, otherwise that would have gone hilariously wrong. How come this happens again and again though? I'd assume someone who does research on how to generate that tone would also learn that it's illegal to broadcast it. Or if it's in some sfx database the channel or studio has access to, you'd assume it would have an according warning notice attached to it.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  They may have literally pulled the sound from a recording on YouTube, though.

akeck 7y ago

I also wish there was a rule preventing the use of motor vehicle horns and emergency services siren sounds on any radio station. People are tired driving home and may react unpredictably in dense traffic to sirens and horns on the radio.

runevault 7y ago
Every time I hear something that sounds like an emergency vehicle on the radio I think of this. Thankfully on my work commute I mostly listen to podcasts so rarely run into this on my roughest drive, but it's still a terrible idea.
m463 7y ago
I agree. Also, I think there should be a law regarding the new electronic billboards, especially at night. They should have a smooth transition over a period of say 10 seconds, instead of instantaneously changing / flashing and distracting drivers.
- kgwxd 7y ago
  They should be outlawed completely.
mwexler 7y ago
Seconded a thousand times. After I hear one and calm down, I'm always running in my head how I'll explain to the cop that I ran off the road reacting to a siren letting me know that "prices just can't get any lower!".
tiredwired 7y ago
The thing that startled me in the past was a woman screaming in a radio commercial. That was around Halloween though. I still had to look around and see if someone was in distress outside.

parliament32 7y ago

EAS tones were also used in the trailer for "Olympus Has Fallen" in 2014, the networks were fined $1.9 million. https://web.archive.org/web/20141231204456/http://bigstory.ap.org/article/false-alarm-olympus-movie-ad-draws-19m-fine https://web.archive.org/web/20141231204456/http://bigstory.a...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

sbhn 7y ago

I better say something stupid on this thread to raise its importance. Remember the more down votes i get, the louder it gets. My phone talks to my sonos which talks to my alexa which talks to my nest which talks to my tv which talks to my router which talks to my drone. Yeah signals, so spooky. And probably Chinese spooky signals, yeah HN crowd gets shivers down there spines. Look out for the spooky Chinese signals, they're out to get you. HN told me so.

crazygringo 7y ago

This is the kind of thing it's easy to imagine anyone doing. If you're a comedy or TV writer... it would probably never occur to you that this aspect of real life is illegal to reproduce on TV. (It certainly wouldn't occur to me.) Seeing as this has happened to at least 3 prominent TV channels... it feels like the failure here is at a much higher level -- kind of like, if an intern wipes your prod database, it's not the intern's fault but the fault of your processes that allowed it to even be a possibility. So... when did the FCC pass this rule? How did it make sure every broadcaster knew about it? Why didn't broadcasters add it to their content review process? Where did the failure occur? I mean, it's not like this was a cost/benefit calculation the broadcasters made to try to get away with something -- it's obviously just out of sheer ignorance. So are the lawyers at the broadcasters totally incompetent or not being listened to... or is it the FCC's fault here for not ensuring the right people at each and every broadcaster actually found out about it in the first place and added it to their review processes?

ars 7y ago
> So... when did the FCC pass this rule? It existed in 1934: https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf (search for 325). > How did it make sure every broadcaster knew about it? Broadcast TV only started in 1928, I think this law predates most of the current networks.
fluxsauce 7y ago
I worked at a couple radio stations doing production and engineering. In short, EAS is a legal requirement and not a joke. I have no doubt that production staff did it out of ignorance and that nobody caught onto it until it actually aired. I bet that control room's air turned blue as it aired.

paulpauper 7y ago

I guess that would set the record for the most expensive royalty payment ever. #2 The Beatles #1 Emergency broadcast sounds

walrus01 7y ago

While on the topic of causing a "boy who cried wolf" problem with emergency tones. All of the Amber alerts on cellular networks in Ontario are currently being sent as "presidential alert" priority level. On many phones' OSes you can disable audible amber alerts but not presidential alerts. Some people in network engineering at the mobile network operators in Canada screwed up big time. https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/amber-alerts-1.5137889 https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/amber-alerts-1.5137889 https://globalnews.ca/news/5683167/amber-alert-system/ https://globalnews.ca/news/5683167/amber-alert-system/ Presidential alerts are only supposed to be used for absolute max priority events, such as literally a nuclear missile attack, a fire storm that's about to engulf a town, tsunami that will affect hundreds of thousands of people, etc.

philwelch 7y ago
Canada doesn’t even have a President! I believe in the US “Presidential alerts“ actually require approval from POTUS. What’s the intended protocol in Canada?
- theluketaylor 7y ago
  The entire process was badly bungled. The FCC designed a nicely tiered alert system for mobile phones. The CRTC then adopted the same system but tossed out all but the "Presidential" level. Then they delegated responsibility for what to alert about to local authorities. The end result is cops in Burlington sending end of the world alerts that can't be silenced to people 1500 km and 15 hours away in Thunder Bay about events that took place 2 hours ago. It's complete lunacy. The tone is so disruptive and loud people are calling 911 to complain. It's so jarring I'm shocked it hasn't resulted in fatal car collisions. I've been in the states during amber alerts and even natural disaster warnings and the process is simple and effective. The alerts come in and you action them if warranted. Ours are literally the end of the world tone no matter what.
  - garaetjjte 7y ago
    How those alerts work technically? They are SMS with special header or entirely separate message type? (eg. in Poland alerts are sent as plain old SMS)

aaron695 7y ago

Interesting I've never heard the real ones. I thought it would be like the movies, but it seems they have been censoring/stylising them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF9bv_UldvE&list=PLpJqohVquXQ0vRkPm9qm98mkXTLuxdcQ5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF9bv_UldvE&list=PLpJqohVquX...

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

These fines don't sound all that hefty? A $395,000 fine would be absolutely devastating for even an abnormally wealthy individual, but I've got to imagine that producing a professional television show comes with much higher costs.

dahart 7y ago
Jimmy Kimmel is an abnormally wealthy individual, and according to my 10 second lazy Google search, $400k is less than 2 weeks’ pay for him personally. For the Kimmel show production company, or ABC, or Disney, it’s closer to peanuts. I’ll speculate wildly that $400k might not even offset the Kimmel show’s ad revenue for a single night. Edit: another lazy Google search says a 30 second ad spot on Kimmel runs about $20k. That means they hit $400k with ~10 minutes of commercial? https://www.adweek.com/tv-video/new-data-shows-just-how-much-advertisers-are-paying-commercials-late-night-167634/ https://www.adweek.com/tv-video/new-data-shows-just-how-much...
- brewdad 7y ago
  Which feels like an entirely appropriate fine given it's a first offense and presumably wasn't done with malicious intent. If Kimmel decides to go ahead and make this a regular segment and flaunt the rules, I would expect the fines to multiply accordingly.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    I think the fine itself is perfectly appropriate for all the reasons you listed. However, I don't understand why the article said the fine will "cost parent company ABC dearly."

cush 7y ago

This is a solid rule. Glad it's enforced so strictly.