More from the article ...

...The Federal Communications Commission, which polices use of the sound to protect its integrity, now wants to fine the organization $504,000 -- just as it did for Hollywood action film Olympus Has Fallen ($1.9 million, 2014) right down to Jimmy Kimmel Live ($395,000, 2019).

You see, even if it's used for comedy, the FCC will fail to see the funny side. During the Cold War, the last time people genuinely feared that Russia could fire off world-ending nukes, the government devised a radio system to alert the entire country to disaster, man-made or otherwise.

This began in 1951 as the Control of Electromagnetic Radiation System (CONELRAD), where air defense control centers would transmit a message to key radio stations around the country by special telephone lines. These stations would then alert smaller radio stations, which would begin broadcasting the message themselves or go offline.

All stations broadcasting would then change their frequency to 640 or 1240, which was supposed to make it difficult for enemy bombers to detect the source, and simplified which frequency people at home would tune to in order to hear the message. This is why radios from the era have little logos on the dial....

@#3 ... $500,000 is nothing for Fox. ...

FCC fines are typically nothing but noise to those who are fined.

Indeed, to your comment... in this case, Fox probably saw the fine as just the cost of ~licensing~ the audio for broadcast.

@#5 ... charge them per violation. ...

Yup.

And in the case of messing with a critical national citizen-safety warning system, I'd say that the fine should be devastating to the corporate entity involved.

I have some thoughts in ha area, but I will not post them because of the dashes.

:)

@#7 ... what are the dashes? ...

The Dashes are what happen when I say things like, I think the Fox executives should give up one of their ------- balls for each of these violations. That is how seriously i view this, in my view, intentional violation of FCC rules by Fox.

@#9 ...I don't remember the last time that annoying noise made me do anything other than shut the TV off.

Yup, and that is the problem the FCC needs to solve.

That "noise" as your comment admits, made you want to do something.

But was "shutting your TV off" the desired action?

My guess would be "no."

With that in mind, is the path to assuring the gravity of that "annoying noise" using it for the commercial benefit of hyping a sporting events?

Or is the path to assuring the gravity of that "annoying noise" using it for its intended purpose?