ESPN won't stop using the emergency alert sound in promotional spots, and now faces its third fine for doing so. $146,000 is on the line, and past outcomes suggest it will end up paid.
The offending ads contained the unauthorized EAS tune and were aired six times from October 20 to 24, 2023. Several complaints were filed on October 20 about the TV spots. The cable network admitted in response to a letter of inquiry that it used the EAS attention signals in the ads.
ESPN will have an opportunity to respond to the proposed fine. The Commission will examine all the evidence and legal arguments surrounding the alleged illegal tone use before making a final decision on
It's illegal to use the alert noise in ads because the government wants it to successfully alert Americans to emergencies rather than end up yet another ignored, normalized background noise on television. As the FCC wrote:
ESPN faces a proposed FCC fine for using an emergency alert tone in a promo ad. Using this tone is out of bounds – it's a public safety hazard to confuse or desensitize viewers to actual emergency alerts. As the refs for these important systems, we made the call.
But it is effective at capturing people's attention, and those fines don't have that many zeroes, so why stop? To a company that makes $90bn a year, it's just another cost of doing business. Just put on in their tab. Engadget:
The FCC issued a $1.12 million fine as part of a forfeiture order in 2015 when ESPN used EAS tones a total of 13 times across three of its cable networks. ESPN violated EAS tone usage rules a second time during an airing of one of its 30 for 30 documentaries Roll Tide/War Eagle, leading to a $20,000 fine in 2021.
Embedded below is one of my favorite misuses of the EAS tone.
