FCC Proposes to Fine WBGG/Miami $20,000 Over Contest
| RADIO ONLINE | Tuesday, March 1, 2022 | 5:17pm CT |
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 Federal Communications Commission |
The FCC has issued an Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (NAL) for $20,000 to iHeartMedia's WBGG-FM (Big 105.9)/Miami for failing to allow a prospective participant to enter a contest for reasons at odds with the written rules for the contest, thereby not conducting it substantially as announced or advertised. Additionally, WBGG apparently failed to maintain the contest's rules on the station's website for at least 30 days after the end of the contest.
According to the Commission's Contest Rule, a station is required to "fully and accurately disclose the material terms" of a contest it broadcasts or advertises, and to conduct the contest "substantially as announced and advertised."
The contest involved the winner of a separate promotion on WBGG who had won the "Southwest Flyaway Fridays" contest on March 1, 2019 and then tried to enter the "You Can't Win" contest on May 30, 2019, only to be told that listeners who had won a station contest in the prior 90 days were ineligible. However, the written rules for the contest specified that only those who had won within 30 days prior to the contest would be blocked from entering.
In its response, iHeartMedia admitted to the agency that "as a result of human error, it appears that the station did not conduct the "You Can't Win" contest in strict compliance with the written rules. It also said it had taken the rules off the station's website at the end of the run instead of the requisite 30 days, but claimed that the entrant was barred anyway because the "You Can't Win" contest started on January 7, and the rule stated that winners of other contests would be ineligible if the win was after 30 days prior to the start of the contest.
The FCC ruled that even if there was an ambiguity in the "You Can't Win" contest's rules, Commission precedent makes clear that ambiguous rules are to be construed against the interests of the promoter of the contest. Undermining WBGG's argument further was that the station's standard protocol since 2002 had been to have its contest screeners ask callers whether they had won a Station contest in the past 90 calendar days.
iHeartMedia now has thrity days to pay the fine or seeking reduction or cancellation.
