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Thursday, July 10, 2008
WASHINGTON -- July 10, 2008: A forfeiture order in the amount of $4,000 has been issued to CBS Radio, as the FCC says Sports WIP-AM/Philadelphia "failed to announce the material terms of a contest and neglected to conduct the contest in accordance with its material terms."
Back in March 2007 the FCC issued a notice of apparent liability to CBS Radio over WIP's annual Wing Bowl after the station disqualified a contestant who had won a chance to compete in the long-running chicken-wing-eating contest. The contestant was dropped after WIP found out he belonged to the Association of Independent Competitive Eaters -- a rival of the Wing Bowl-associated Independent Federation of Competitive Eating.
CBS argued in its response to the NAL that it had a right to exclude the contestant at its discretion, and also claimed WIP's conduct was just a "technical" violation that didn't deceive the public.
The FCC says in the forefeiture order that CBS acknowledged that it had disqualifed the contestant because of his membership in the AICE, and notes that the contest rules didn't state that members of eating associations other than the IFOCE were ineligible. Says the FCC, "The commission's contest rule generally does not permit a licensee to modify the material terms of a contest -- in this case, eligibility requirements -- after the contest has been conducted."
The commission also rejected CBS's argument that there was merely a technical violation, saying, "The licensee changed the material terms of its contest and disqualified a contestant after the fact, which, in effect, resulted in deceiving the public."
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