Some EAS Test Confusion Possible, But Many Work on it, Genachowski Says
Stations and cable networks are taking steps to further inform viewers that a three-minute-long, first-of-its-kind nationwide emergency alert exercise is only a test, FCC officials said Thursday. Chairman Julius Genachowski and Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett acknowledged that there could be some viewer confusion during the Nov. 9 event. They said that’s because some cable encoder-decoders can’t add in additional test disclaimers during the exercise (CD Oct 13 p9). Pay-TV providers and broadcasters have been running public service announcements and otherwise informing viewers of the test.
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Some viewers may see a message saying “a primary entry point system has issued an emergency action notification for the United States, effective until” a certain time, a slide shown during the presentation said. Public Safety and the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau are working with groups representing those who are deaf or hard of hearing, since their constituents wouldn’t be able to hear the audio saying it’s just a test, Barnett said. The FCC Office of Legislative Affairs has been telling members of Congress about the exercise, he said.
The difference between the Nov. 9 exercise, which will trigger the “familiar EAS tones” interrupting regular programming at 2 p.m. EST, and the standard monthly tests is this one is “occurring on all stations at the same time and lasting a little longer than usual,” Barnett said. It’s also testing the “actual live code,” so “the visual message accompanying the test may not say in all cases this is a test” and “particularly over cable,” he added. The NAB has a slide that can be inserted saying explicitly it’s not a crisis situation, and the NCTA and others in industry have done “extensive outreach” (CD Oct 19 p7) to the disabled community, Barnett said. “The test is diagnostic in nature, to assess how well EAS equipment at the approximately 30,000 EAS facilities nationwide can receive and propagate alerts.”
Genachowski said “many cable networks” have agreed to run PSAs “before and after the nationwide EAS test, to clarify that it’s just a test.” That’s “because we understand that in many areas there may not be the technology to insert that it’s only a test,” he continued: “We look forward” to learning from the event. “This particular test is indeed important,” Genachowski said, and comes as New York City later this year will let emergency agencies send alerts to cellphones, a program which will be rolled out in other cities in 2012. The FCC Wednesday released a handbook for all EAS participants, who include all DBS providers, cable and telco-TV operators and commercial and nonprofit TV stations (CD Oct 27 p18).
Commissioner Robert McDowell hopes his colleagues will travel to see the test occur at individual stations in various parts of the country, as FCC staff have been invited to watch, he said. Commissioner Michael Copps, who says there’s no “substitute for a good test,” thinks “this is shaping up to be a really good one,” he said. The “breadth of outreach” beforehand “builds a little bit on the experience we had with DTV” in the runup to the full-power TV station analog cutoff in 2009, when he was interim chairman of the FCC, Copps said: He hopes stakeholders will “take the lessons learned” to “make for a robust and stronger EAS.”