A Dumb Mistake Nearly Cost Young Sheldon A Whopping $300k
No matter how free we think American TV is, it is still regulated by the government.
And those people don't like it when Hollywood becomes too frivolous and breaks the rules that they so meticulously make.
Channels may face fines amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars for violating TV regulations, even for seemingly innocent projects.
As modest as Young Sheldon is, it once had a legal standout with the Federal Communications Committee. The FCC contemplated imposing a substantial $272,000 fine on CBS during the first season of the show, which could have nipped TBBT's spin-off in the bud.
Given Young Sheldon's family nature, it's hard to imagine what could have caused the fine. Indeed, it was not any particular obscenity or nudity that provoked it. The mere use of the Emergency Alert System was the cause.
In Season 1, Episode 18 a slightly changed version of the signal was used to alert the characters of a coming tornado. Although the EAS sound was altered, it still bore much resemblance to the real emergency signal, the FCC argued. The episode and the signal were broadcast over 227 TV stations and could have stirred panic among the viewers or had an “alert fatigue” effect that would have had ramifications in the future.
Nevertheless, the Committee gracefully offered CBS to settle it outside the courtroom.
But there’s no record of the channel’s response so it’s unclear how the argument with the government worth $272,000 was resolved. What is known is that using the EAS signal was a mistake in the first place.
It was introduced as a replacement to the Emergency Broadcast System in 1997 - long after Young Sheldon’s time period. So it was not only careless to use the EAS but inaccurate as well. And CBS could have paid much more than a quarter of a million dollars in the form of the series fans’ loyalty. Everybody knows that fans don’t forgive blunders like this when it comes to authenticity.
Anyway, Young Sheldon is still up and running. And we are going to see at least one more season of the popular prequel of The Big Bang Theory.