Pixel 4 ads cost radio giant fines of $400K

San Antonio’s iheartmedia Inc. has agreed to pay a $400,000 fine as part of a court judgment to resolve allegations that it deceptively advertised a Google phone on its radio stations around the country.

The company, the nation’s largest radio station owner with about 860 radio stations in 160 markets, entered into the agreed judgment simultaneously with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filing a lawsuit against it Monday in state District Court in San Antonio.

The suit alleged iheartradio personalities gave first-person endorsements for the Google Pixel 4 phone without ever using it.

The action was among several announced by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general against iheartmedia and Google, though Google was not a defendant in the San Antonio suit. The companies are required to pay a total of $9.4 million in penalties to resolve the litigation, the FTC announced.

Judge Nicole Garza signed off on the agreed judgment. It includes a permanent injunction that bars iheartmedia from making similar misrepresentations.

As part of the order, iheartmedia neither admitted nor denied the allegations in Paxton’s lawsuit.

Paxton alleged in the lawsuit that in 2019, Google hired iheartmedia to have its radio personalities endorse the Pixel 4 smartphone in 10 U.S. markets — including Houston and Dallasfort Worth.

The company gives “select” radio personalities the option to receive additional compensation for recording advertisements that air, the complaint said.

Google provided scripts for

the personalities to use in recording the ads endorsing Pixel 4. The scripts were in the firstperson and contained claims such as “It’s my favorite phone camera out there” and “It’s also great at helping me get stuff done.”

An iheartmedia employee emailed Google’s media buying agent to say the broadcaster wanted to have its personalities “customize certain parts of the script” to mention, for example, their kids or their hobbies, the suit said. Google’s agent approved the request.

However, before the first advertisements were recorded, a iheartmedia employee emailed the media buying agent to say the broadcaster couldn’t require talent to use “I” in the ads when they had not used the product, the complaint said.

The employee added that a few of its markets “had raised

concerns about the personalization without actually having the Pixel 4s,” the suit said.

The media buying agent responded that it was “not feasible” for Google to send phones to the personalities because the product had not reached store shelves yet, the lawsuit said.

Forty-three iheartradio personalities in the 10 markets “each recorded advertisements for the Pixel 4 using first-person language identical or substantially similar” to the scripts they were provided, the suit said.

Some personalities in Texas personalized what they said they did with the phone even though they did not own one, regularly use it or take photos with it, the complaint alleged.

The ads aired 2,405 times from Oct. 28 to Dec. 2, 2019, in Houston and Dallas-fort Worth.

Paxton alleged iheartmedia failed to comply with federal regulations that say endorsements must “reflect the honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience of the endorser.” An endorser must have owned or used the product.

As part of the judgment, iheartmedia has to submit compliance reports for 10 years upon request by the state attorney general’s office.

The company must pay $400,000 that will be divided by a “multistate executive committee.” Texas will receive $50,000 for civil penalties and almost $16,000 for attorneys’ fees and investigative costs. he other states that sued were Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York.

An iheartmedia spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.