FCC Hits CBS With $272,000 Fine For Airing Simulated EAS Tones On 'Young Sheldon' Episode

No Fakes Allowed

The FCC has proposed one more fine against a broadcaster for using a simulated Emergency Alert System tone, and it's a big one, $272,000 against CBS television and some of its subsidiaries for airing an EAS tone in an episode of the situation comedy "YOUNG SHELDON."

The tone was included in the episode that aired on APRIL 12, 2018 involving a tornado threatening the Cooper family's home. CBS said that the tones were mixed lower and behind dialogue, and were modified rather than the actual EAS tones; the Commission rejected CBS' defense and contention that airing the tones was protected by the First Amendment, and added that the tones need not be exact nor accompanied by embedded EAS data to violate the rule, pointing to the intention of the FCC to ensure that use of tones when no emergency exists "will dull consumers’ attentiveness to the public-safety import of the sounds," which the order calls "alert fatigue."

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