[NFCB] membership requirements for ticket giveaways?

[Read, Aaron]

IIRC, there is precedent where simply having the announcement posted (either at the station or a website) is not enough...you must occassionally make announcements on the air as well.   If you listen late at night to many commercial stations you'll hear a 60 second promo of chipmunk-speed talking of all the legalese regarding contests and giveaways.
 
Unfortunately I do not have chapter & verse in mind, but I do seem to remember it wasn't in the CFR, it was the result of an R&O.
 
- Aaron

________________________________

From: nfcb-bounces at mailman.lmi.net on behalf of June Fox
Sent: Tue 2/26/2008 11:50 AM
To: nfcb at mailman.lmi.net
Subject: Re: [NFCB] membership requirements for ticket giveaways?



I agree that state laws will have a significant impact on how/if a
station is involved with games of chance.  I was taught long, long ago,
that federal law prohibited stations from having lotteries on air.
There are some exceptions, of course, but I'm 99.9% sure that requiring
contest winners to be members (ie. pay for the possibility of winning)
is not permitted.

In addition, if you are streaming your signal and/or allow listeners
from multiple states to enter your contests, you may be open to dealing
with the laws of several states.

Here's a link to the FCC webpage that specifically addresses the topic
of broadcasting contests and lotteries.
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/contests.html


One other thing.  I believe you must have the rules of your contests
written and available to any who request them.  Most stations,
regardless of license type, have a set of general contest rules posted
on their website.

June




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