FCC to Contest-Conducting Stations: Present Prizes Pronto!

If you’re a broadcast licensee thinking about conducting a contest for your audience, heads up. The Federal Communications Commission has just made clear that it expects you to get the prizes into the winners’ hands “promptly”. The failure to do so – or maybe the failure to promote the fact that you’re going to do so (the FCC’s reasoning on this point isn’t a model of clarity) – could cost you an extra $4,000. Of course, the FCC’s contest rule – Section 73.1216 – doesn’t say exactly how long the licensee has to award prizes. In fact, the rule doesn’t address that question at all. But in a recently released Order on Review, the FCC held that a licensee’s apparent foot-dragging in the prize delivery department violated the rule nevertheless.