FCC fines ESPN, Viacom $1.4 million for co-opting emergency alerts to promote a movie

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The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday fined ESPN and Viacom $1.4 million for improperly using emergency alert tones in televised ads for the movie Olympus Has Fallen.

In 2013, the networks aired promos for the thriller, which depicts a terror attack on Washington, D.C., that broadcast the proprietary warning tones and thus denigrated the "integrity of the system," the FCC said. The agency imposed fines of $280,000 against ESPN and $1.12 million against Viacom. NBC Universal, which also aired the ads, agreed to a $530,000 fine last year.

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"Our action here sends a strong signal that use of the EAS tones for non-emergency purposes presents a danger to public safety which we will not tolerate," Travis LeBlanc, head of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau, said in a statement.

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Jon Terbush

Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.