The largest fine – a hefty $16,000 – comes with a warning that the next time there’s a similar complaint against Spanish Broadcasting System’s WSKQ-FM (97.9) New York, the punishment will be even more severe. The FCC’s phone-notification rule is simple: Someone being aired live or taped for future airing must be notified what’s happening before they say anything. As the FCC tells WSKQ, the phone prank conducted by an outside contract is “the type of behavior – entertainment at the expense of an individual’s right to privacy – that Section 73.1206 was enacted to sanction.” The sanction in the case of the August 23, 2007 phone call is $16,000, and it’s the second fine of that magnitude against WSKQ. The prank was that somebody pretending to be a doctor called a woman to inform her that her husband had died at a hospital following a motorcyle accident. Read the FCC’s Notice of Apparent Liability here. The other phone-notification rule fine issued this week was against Augusta-market WAAW, Williston, SC (94.7), for the March 23, 2006 broadcast of conversations with three local airport officials. WAAW argued that the talk host identified himself and said he was calling from the station. But the FCC says “mere identification of oneself by name and as calling from a radio station” isn’t adequate notice. The $4,000 Forfeiture Order against Rejoynetwork LLC is here.