Univision faces record $24 million fine from FCC

Univision faces record $24 million fine from FCC
U.S. Hispanic TV network represented soap operas as children's educational programming

Univision, the largest Hispanic television network in the United States, reportedly faces a record fine for representing soap operas as children's educational programming.

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to slap Univision with a 24-million-dollar fine, which would be the largest FCC fine against any company, The New York Times said.

The hefty penalty also would "send a strong signal to broadcasters that they will be expected to meet their required quota of shows that educate and inform children, after years of permissive oversight in this area," it said.

FCC chairman Kevin Martin told the newspaper that the commission decided to impose the heavy fine because Univision had claimed to meet its obligations to broadcast educational children's programs by showing the soap opera "Complices al Rescate" ("Friends to the Rescue") and other "telenovelas."

"Complices al Rescate" follows the misadventures of 11-year-old identical twin girls who swapped identities after discovering they had been separated at birth.

"A significant purpose and key educational objective of this program is to illustrate how friendship, love and kindness can help overcome life's adversities," the network's lawyers said in their brief before the FCC, according to the Times.

The 24-million-dollar fine, along with a plan to show more programming that would comply with the children's educational programming rules, are part of a consent decree that Univision has tentatively agreed to in a bid to resolve complaints by viewers.

Martin has already signed onto the decree and the full commission is expected to approve it, the newspaper said. Subsequently, Univision will be able to complete its 12-billion-dollar sale to a consortium of private equity firms.

Lawyers representing Univision before the commission declined to comment about the case, the Times said.

The penalty is nearly three times the previous record fine of nine million dollars, imposed against Qwest Communications for violating telephone interconnection rules in 2004, the newspaper noted.

It is significantly more than the largest indecency penalty, 3.5 million dollars, levied against Viacom that same year for remarks by Howard Stern and other so-called shock jocks on the radio.