Radio station owners must pay for airing private phone message
Posted: Feb. 21, 2008
Inside TV & Radio
by Tim Cuprisin
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  
It's a basic rule of radio that you don't put anybody on the air without their knowledge.

After a $4,000 Federal Communications Fine against WNOV-AM (860), it's now clear that you can't put anybody's cell phone greeting on the air as well.

The matter dates back a year, to last Feb. 23, when Mike McGee Sr. called the cell phone of Keith Conrad, then the producer of the morning show on WISN-AM (1130), and played the message on his "Word Warriors" show.

According to the FCC rules that govern radio stations, "before broadcasting or recording a telephone conversation for later broadcast, a licensee must inform any party to the call of the licensee's intention to broadcast or record the conversation."

The fine, by the way, doesn't go against McGee, but against Jerrel Jones' Courier Communications, which owned the station.

A lot has happened at WNOV since last February. McGee was suspended indefinitely after over-the-line comments about the late mother of WTMJ-AM (620) talker Charlie Sykes. McGee's show disappeared forever with the reported sale of the station last month to a group called Radio Multi-Media.

FCC records show that Courier Communications is still the license holder, although WNOV has changed its programming and on-air voices.

Jones' position is that McGee was responsible for the FCC violation, writing that "McGee, or his guest, made a call to Conrad . . . without the knowledge or consent of Courier."

But the FCC doesn't buy that defense.

"The Commission has long held that licensees are responsible for the programming aired on their stations and for violations of Commission rules by employees or independent contractors," writes the FCC's Benigno E. Bartolome, who issued the fine.

Courier has 30 days to appeal the FCC's decision or pay the fine.