Broad Industry Group Seeks Further Delay of FCC Radio, TV and MVPD Alert Rules
The FCC was asked to delay further the emergency-alert system deadline for all multichannel video programming distributors and radio and TV stations to be capable of transmitting EAS warnings in a format developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Associations representing cable operators big and small and commercial and public radio and TV broadcasters asked for another delay in the effective date of common alerting protocol (CAP) rules. The commission has been taking longer than industry and some agency officials anticipated in finalizing gear certification rules so that broadcasters and MVPDs can comply with CAP. In seeking comment on the Part 11 equipment certification rules, the commission asked about a further delay (CD May 27 p4). A major maker of EAS equipment told us it still opposes a further delay.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The regulator should “act expeditiously to grant a further extension” of the Sept. 30 deadline for CAP compliance, making it at least six months after the Part 11 rules are updated, the industry filing said. The Friday document is in docket 04-296 (http://xrl.us/bk3ubb). Given that “prompt resolution of this matter is critical,” the petition asked that the request be broken off from other issues in the rulemaking on the Part 11 certification. “It remains uncertain whether the Commission will implement its own certification process separate from that of FEMA,” said broadcast associations from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the American Cable Association, Association of Public TV Stations, NAB, NCTA, NPR and PBS. Those groups and the Society of Broadcast Engineers had their previous 180-day extension request approved by the FCC.
"No EAS Participant should be required to purchase costly equipment without knowing whether it will be fully FCC compliant,” the new petition said. “The additional time requested will also allow EAS Participants to take into consideration any changes to the Part 11 rules before making final purchase decisions, as well as to finalize their planning for installation, training, testing, and operations.” States and the National Weather Service don’t plan to soon start sending messages in the new CAP format, the petition noted. A spokeswoman for the Public Safety Bureau, which issued the Part 11 rulemaking, had no comment on the petition. EAS participants include all broadcasters, wireline MVPDs and DBS and satellite radio.
It would be a stretch for the FCC to finish the current proceeding and for the new Part 11 equipment rules to take effect through publication in the Federal Register before Sept. 30, said broadcast lawyer Richard Zaragosa of Pillsbury Winthrop. Since the comment cycle in the rulemaking hasn’t ended, with replies due Thursday, it would be weeks before any order could take effect, said Zaragosa, who filed the petition. “Given the care to which they have dealt with this to date, we felt it was just unfair to require EAS participants to purchase equipment that would be EAS compliant without knowing whether it will be,” he said of FCC efforts on CAP. “All EAS participants want to meet that deadline, but want to meet it with EAS equipment” that’s properly certified, he added.
The FCC shouldn’t approve another delay, and one wouldn’t cut an order backlog at Sage Alerting Systems or any other gear maker, President Harold Price said. An extension could prompt the few EAS participants that don’t have compliant equipment to further delay orders, as happened when the commission approved the first 180-day extension, he said. For some EAS participants with tight or shrinking budgets, “upgrading their equipment will be painful,” but no less so with more time, Price said. “The guys sitting on the sidelines are going to be sitting on the sidelines 180 days from now,” he added. “If the FCC has a delay now, anybody that hasn’t bought them is going to put their money back in their pocket,” Price said of the market for equipment that encodes and decodes alerts: “It’s not going to help manufacturers any” to meet customer demand. Sage wouldn’t be able to meet a large order for several hundred decoders with products on-hand in any case, Price said: “We are building units based on the rate on which the orders are coming in."
Zaragosa thinks the FCC likely will approve the request. “Given the number of organizations participating in this and the breadth of it and the fairly logical basis for it, I think there’s a fairly good chance it will be acted on,” he said: By asking for the rules to take effect six months after the agency finishes Part 11 rules, “it puts the commission in control of the trigger date” and the period “could start quite quickly.”