In an apparent violation of FCC rules, conservative talk radio station KFBK 1530 AM in Sacramento transmitted a paid political advertisement to an unknown number of other stations in the area, using the federal Emergency Alert System (EAS), thus automatically forcing the ad onto the stations' airwaves. This is according to a press release issued today by KDVS-FM, a non-commercial community station in Davis that received and inadvertently aired the transmission.An apparent violation??
The advertisement is for Richard "Dick" Mountjoy, the Republican running against incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Immediately following the Mountjoy ad is a commercial for HMS Capital Loans.
KDVS issued a press release that read in part:
KFBK blames training error for the transmissionSo the day before an election, a conservative radio station has a "snafu" and coincidentally broadcasts a political ad for a Republican.
Upon contact by KDVS management, KFBK Operations Manager Alan Eisansom claimed station responsibility for the message broadcast assigning blame to some kind of nonspecific training snafu.
Of course that's a snafu! No doubt about it! It's all one big misunderstanding. Of course it is.
How convenient.
1 comment:
Don't chalk up to conspiracy what can be explained by incompetence.
WLW in Cincinnati recently aired an EAS test that included a car dealer ad --- it made it onto every other station in Cincinnati.
If you don't press the EAS test buttons in the right order, you can easily do something like that. And most of these stations are relying on $5.25 per hour board operators who might also be tending three or four other stations.
If you like, blame radio station consolidation and poor training, aided by a Republican-controlled FCC ... but not some conspiracy.
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