Arkansas TV Stations held to standards

Television and radio stations receive their broadcast licenses to operate under the PICON (public interest convenience or necessity) standard because of the scarcity principle (limited number of broadcast channels available). Before the mid-80s the PICON standards were strictly enforced and if a TV station wasn’t operating within those standards, it’s broadcast license would be pulled. The Reagan administration deregulated broadcasting and since that point, TV has been pretty much a free for all except when it comes to children’s programming and obscenities.

According to the Arkansas TV News blog Clear Channel’s two Little Rock stations were hit with $26,000 in fines for not following the children’s programming regulations. It looks to me like they didn’t purposefully break the rules, but just someone didn’t know the rules or some clerical error occurred when scheduling commercials. But, Clear Channel still has to pay up. The corporate accountants might want to consider these fines next time they low ball they salary budget to save a few dollars. I’m sure an extra $10,000 in salary would have gotten Clear Channel a more competent staff member to make sure these problems and fines didn’t occur. The net result would have saved them $16,000.

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