Florida TV stations are testing the enhanced alerting capabilities of the mobile emergency alert system (M-EAS). WESH-TV Orlando, an NBC affiliate, is testing the M-EAS by demonstrating how a banner announcement could be overlaid on mobile TV signals transmitted from the broadcaster and received on a consumer device, said the Mobile EAS Coalition in a news release Monday (http://prn.to/1strP1R). West Palm Beach stations WFLX (Fox), WPTV (NBC) and WPBF (ABC) plan to add M-EAS capability to their existing emergency alerting equipment to enable M-EAS “to be received on two types of mobile TV consumer receivers designed to bring mobile digital TV to smartphones and tablets,” it said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency weighed in on an FCC public notice (CD March 13 p10) asking whether the commission should make broadcasters switch to a “designated hitter” system to send emergency alert system (EAS) messages in languages other than English when the foreign-language station is off-air. A one-paragraph FEMA comment posted Wednesday in docket 04-296, 26 days before initial responses are due to the Public Safety Bureau request (CD March 31 p15), backed the Minority Media and Telecommunication Council’s work to extend EAS warnings to those who don’t speak English. FEMA cautioned that using text-to-speech (TTS) technology to send such non-English warnings of bad weather, natural disasters and other events has “limitations.” A designated hitter approach would have stations in the same market of one that’s off-air distribute alerts in the language used by the knocked-out broadcaster.
Comments in an FCC proceeding on a multilingual emergency alert system plan are due April 28. Replies are due May 12, the commission said in a Federal Register notice (http://1.usa.gov/1jgkIFU). The Public Safety Bureau issued a public notice seeking comment on the “designated hitter” plan this month (CD March 13 p 10).
The House Homeland Security Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee cleared the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) Modernization Act, HR-3283, on Thursday during a markup of three bills (http://1.usa.gov/1jaud9x). The bill “seeks to ensure that the system works reliably, effectively and efficiently to ensure the appropriate use of taxpayer funds,” said subcommittee Chairman Susan Brooks, R-Ind., in her opening statement. “It provides the IPAWS program with needed direction.” CTIA “appreciate[s] the Subcommittee’s effort to modernize IPAWS while respecting and protecting the work that wireless carriers have put in to deliver Wireless Emergency Alerts,” said CTIA Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter. “Since WEA debuted two years ago, the system has been used more than 9000 times to protect the public. We are pleased that the Subcommittee recognizes the value of the WEA program and applied the old maxim ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ in crafting the legislation it approved today.”
Questions posed in an FCC public notice proposing rules for a multilingual emergency alert system (EAS) plan “reflect an interest in kicking the tires and looking under the hood,” a broadcast attorney said. The notice involves a designated-hitter backup plan to help non-English language stations knocked off the air during emergencies transmit EAS messages (CD March 13 p10). Broadcasters have expressed concern that such a requirement “would force them to hire folks fluent in one or more foreign languages,” wrote the industry lawyer, Fletcher Heald’s Harry Cole, on the law firm’s blog Thursday (http://bit.ly/1r5RRHP). It’s surprising that the FCC might be interested in such an unorthodox approach, Cole said. When was the last time “that the FCC suggested that a licensee might want to leave the keys to the station under the welcome mat ... so that some non-station announcers can take over for a while?” he asked. Refreshing the record “wouldn’t be necessary if the commission had, at some point in the last decade, taken action,” he added. The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council and other groups made the designated-hitter proposal in 2005.
NCTA estimated it would cost about $3,500 per location to order and install new emergency alert system equipment required to recognize a new nationwide EAS code, in comments in FCC docket 04-296 (http://bit.ly/1d221jx). The development and testing processes for the new code for downstream equipment is significantly more time- and resource-intensive “than the encoder/decoder review process and any subsequent modifications,” it said. The aggregate capital and operational cost of deploying a new nationwide location code is about $1.1 million for about 85 percent of cable customers, it said. At least one year is needed to deploy the new location code once it’s adopted by the FCC, NCTA said. Requiring the National Periodic Test Code to filter location codes and to last longer than two minutes is more costly and complex to implement than adopting a nationwide location code, it said. This would cost about $4.4 million for about 85 percent of cable customers, NCTA said. Public Safety Bureau staff discussed with NCTA the importance of achieving a consistent regulatory approach to EAS over an ad hoc interim approach to the handling, routing and security of EAS alerts, said the association.
The FCC seems poised to propose rules for broadcasters to help non-English language stations knocked off-air during emergencies transmit emergency alert system messages, said industry and other EAS observers. They said that the Public Safety Bureau issued a public notice now on a 2005 proposal for such a designated-hitter backup plan from groups including the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council is among indications FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler wants to act. Wheeler, on the other hand, may not have made up his mind, and the item could also be used to surface industry opposition to requiring multilingual alerts by radio and TV stations, said an EAS expert. That view was in the minority among those we interviewed Wednesday.
Maine Public Broadcasting Network will deploy a public safety broadcasting service based on Triveni Digital’s SkyScraper DTV content distribution system. MPBN plans to use the system to deliver real-time emergency alert system messages, Triveni said in a news release Monday. The messages will include audio and video originating from the Maine Emergency Management Agency headquarters to every broadcast operation center in Maine, “providing TV and radio stations with immediate information to relay to their viewers and listeners,” Triveni said. SkyScraper offers a highly scalable end-to-end environment “that supports point-to-multipoint digital media content distribution, with targeted point-to-point delivery,” it said.
The FCC Technological Advisory Council plans to make cybersecurity a key focus for 2014, helping the agency sort through the role it can play, officials said Monday during the initial TAC meeting of the year. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler formerly chaired TAC.
The FCC proposed fines totaling $1.9 million against Disney’s ESPN, Viacom and Comcast’s NBCUniversal for repeatedly transmitting a movie trailer that misused the emergency alert system tones. The EAS allegations stemmed from consumer complaints last year about a “No Surrender Trailer” for the movie Olympus Has Fallen, the FCC said. The companies admitted to airing the trailer multiple times, claiming they took action by revising their advertisement review guidelines and ceasing to carry the ads after letters of inquiry (LOI) and advisories from the commission. The commission proposed a $1.1 million fine for Viacom, a $530,000 fine for NBCUniversal and $280,000 for ESPN. The agency last month proposed fining Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting and others over similar EAS violations in what industry attorneys called a crackdown (CD Jan 16 p7), which they said Monday appears to have continued.