FCC Delays New EAS Format Deadline Nine Months for Broadcasters, MVPDs
The FCC delayed for a second time emergency alert system rules for traditional media to get and pass on to viewers and listeners EAS warnings that the government distributes online. The commission Friday delayed by nine months to June 30 the date when all multichannel video programming distributors and radio and TV stations must be ready for the Common Alerting Protocol format. That’s longer than the four-month compliance delay sought (CD Aug 8 p3) by CAP’s developer, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It released the new standard in September 2010, and CAP is part of the integrated public alert and warning system (IPAWS).
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FEMA officials shared their displeasure about the extension with attendees at NAB’s radio show in Chicago, which ended Friday, said an EAS equipment executive who heard those staffers. Senior Director Edward Czarnecki of Monroe Electronics, which opposed delay, said key officials behind CAP and IPAWS expressed the opinion that they're “deflated by this.” Those staffers “felt they had reached some momentum” with putting IPAWS alerts fully online later this month, and with the National Weather Service poised to issue alerts in that format as soon as November. Smaller makers of EAS encoders and decoders may be hurt by the delay, since they had ramped up production to meet this month’s deadline, Czarnecki said.
The delay is needed because new equipment certification rules for CAP aren’t ready, the FCC said in an order. It said those Part 11 rules will be issued in the future. The rulemaking notice on those rules has been said by commission and industry officials to have been nearly ready for some time at the FCC, though it wasn’t released until May (CD May 27 p4). An industry official noted that commissioners quickly approved the current order from the Public Safety Bureau, which circulated about two weeks before getting the nod. Spokeswomen for the bureau and FEMA had no comment.
The FCC declined to heed the requests of some EAS gear makers not to push back the compliance deadline. It also didn’t grant a petition to delay Part 11 rule compliance until six months after the rules are finished, saying the order made that moot. Cable operators large and small and commercial and noncommercial radio and TV stations had petitioned for the delay. “It is unlikely that the Commission can address all of the issues raised in the Third FNPRM” on certification rules “and ensure that the corresponding Part 11 rule amendments are adopted and effective prior to the current September 30, 2011 deadline” for CAP compliance, the agency said (http://xrl.us/bmdmw2).
"We find that more regulatory certainty is warranted before we require EAS Participants to comply with regulations that may soon change and thereby necessitate additional and potentially avoidable expenditures,” the commission said. The new deadline is “appropriate” because it provides the six months the petitioners sought, “plus an additional period of time for the Commission to complete its revisions to the Part 11 EAS rules resulting from the Third FNPRM,” it said. “To the extent that FEMA needs to work with EAS Participants to fine-tune its IPAWS system after it comes online, it may do so by working with EAS Participants that have already installed equipment."
The FCC’s rationale for the delay “makes perfect sense,” said broadcast lawyer Paul Cicelski of Pillsbury Winthrop. It had sought the extension on behalf of the American Cable Association, Association of Public TV Stations, state broadcaster associations, NAB, NCTA, NPR and PBS and others. “It would have been helpful” for the commission to have acted sooner, but Cicelski is happy the deadline was extended, he said. “Let’s just hope that they stick to the next three-months deadline that they sort of gave themselves” to wrap up the Part 11 proceeding, he said: Of a Nov. 9 nationwide EAS test that won’t use CAP, the delay ought to give participants “time to focus on the national test, as opposed to being worried about getting the new equipment up and ready."
Nine more months gives broadcasters “time to comply with the revised EAS regulations that FCC plans to finalize in the near future,” an APTS spokeswoman said. The delay lets the agency “complete the rulemaking and give[s] operators adequate time to review the requirements and test the new system,” an NCTA spokesman said. “The FCC had left unanswered many significant questions regarding the codification of specific obligations for CAP functionality,” and there’s time to answer those, ACA President Matt Polka said. An NPR spokeswoman said that, “for public radio stations having to do more with fewer resources, avoiding unnecessary EAS implementation costs is important.”