According to Variety, the planned fine against WDBJ-TV comes in response to complaints over the station’s July 12, 2012, newscast that featured a report on a former adult film star who had joined a local volunteer rescue squad.
Travis LeBlanc, chief of the FCC’s enforcement bureau, said that the agency’s action “sends a clear signal that there are severe consequences for TV stations that air sexually explicit images when children are likely to be watching.”
The FCC said that the broadcast violated federal law that prohibits stations from airing indecent programming from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Since January 2014, the FCC’s enforcement bureau has issued two other fines for broadcasting indecent content. In both cases, the sanctions were against radio stations.
The station argued that it did not notice the indecent material when it broadcast the screen shot of the adult film website. The images were featured in a small box on the adult film website, which a station photojournalist said he did not notice before the report was broadcast during a 6 p.m. newscast. The station had argued that the images were “extremely fleeting” and did not violate FCC rules. It also argued that the indecency rules are unconstitutional.
Jeffrey Marks, president and general manager of the station, said that they plan to contest the ruling. He noted that the explicit image was not even visible on many TV sets and ran less than three seconds.
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