NEW YORK — The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a $13.4 million fine on TV-station owner Sinclair for not identifying paid programming as advertising.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. is one of the country’s largest owners of TV stations, including KATU in Portland. It pays networks ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox for the national news, shows and sports it airs on those stations and airs local news shows.

The FCC said Thursday that Sinclair’s Salt Lake City station produced news story-like programming for local news broadcasts and longer 30-minute TV programs for the Huntsman Cancer Foundation. The FCC said these spots that weren’t properly identified as ads aired more than 1,700 times in 2016 across 64 Sinclair-owned TV stations and also for 13 other stations not owned by the company. The FCC said Sinclair apparently didn’t tell these stations that it didn’t own that it was providing an ad.

The Utah-based Huntsman Cancer Foundation raises funds for the Huntsman Cancer Institute, a hospital in Salt Lake City. Huntsman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The FCC’s two Democratic commissioners dissented from the penalty on Sinclair, saying it was too small. Republicans are in the majority of the agency’s leadership.