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... The Federal Communications Commission published an order today finding ESPN liable for six instances of broadcasting EAS sounds not to notify the public of an actual emergency, but to advertise its upcoming coverage of the NBA basketball season.

"Transmitting EAS Tones in the absence of an actual emergency is not a game," FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan A. Egal said in a press release.

According to the FCC, ESPN admitted that it "developed, produced and transmitted" the offending broadcasts between October 20 and 24, 2023, and further admitted that it "[t]ransmitted a portion of the EAS attention signals as part of the promo spot."

If broadcasting a two-second chunk of the EAS sound wasn't bad enough, ESPN's basketball ads also included "voiceover of a man who states, in an exaggerated, stentorian tone, that 'we interrupt our program to bring you this important message,'" the Commission said.

"This manner of appropriation of the EAS Tones falls squarely within the type of simulation that the Commission's rules seek to address and prohibit," the FCC said. ...