How a Hot Wheels Show Resulted in Massive Fines for 19 Companies
By Movieguide® Contributor
Nineteen media companies have been fined by the FCC for airing Hot Wheels commercials during episodes of a Hot Wheels show, violating children’s advertisement rules.
The violations were reported in 2018 with the companies calling it a mistake in their programming. On eight occasions a Hot Wheels ad for the Super Ultimate Garage Playset was aired during commercial breaks for the TEAM HOT WHEELS show.
This violated The Children’s Television Act of 1990 which outlined rules for how many minutes of commercials could be aired per hour of children’s programming — 10.5 minutes per hour on weekends and 12 minutes per hour on weekdays.
When a commercial for a product is aired alongside a program related to that product — like a Hot Wheels playset during a Hot Wheels show — the FCC considers the entire episode an ad. This policy was implemented to protect young viewers from becoming confused about what’s an ad versus what’s part of the show. Thus, the violations in 2018 were caused by going over the threshold for how many minutes of ads can be shown per hour.
“This behavior constitutes an apparent willful and repeated violation of section 73.670 of the Rules. Airing a commercial for a Hot Wheels-themed toy during a Hot Wheels-themed show fits squarely within the Commission definition regarding what constitutes a program-length commercial,” the FCC ruling states.
“Under our precedent, each station — with three exceptions — is liable for eight program-length commercials because only eight episodes of TEAM HOT WHEELS were affected; during three of the episodes, a commercial aired twice,” the ruling continued.
Sinclair was fined the harshest, receiving a $2.6 million penalty largely due to past violations of similar offenses. Nexstar and Cunningham Broadcast Group received large fines as well, being charged $182,000 and $140,000 respectively. Most of the other broadcasting groups face a fine of $20,000.
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