[EAS] Single point entry of CAP messages

[Alan Kline]

Again, Alex, I'll disagree with you, at least as far as how things are 
done in our shop and our local competitors. We take AMBER alerts 
extremely seriously. AMBER's are actually the only EAS activation type 
that we go ahead and forward, which we do immediately. If newsroom staff 
are on duty, they will immediately compose a crawl in ENPS, generally 
with more detail than is available than the crawl, and we'll run it 
frequently as long as the alert is active. Master control also has the 
capability of accessing ENPS to create crawls if newsroom staff is not 
available (overnight and weekend mid-days). Finally, by means of a PC in 
MCR with a scan converter, we can quickly take a picture of the child 
from the state AMBER website and take it to air. (BTW, if you really 
want to make the phones ring, upcut the last 2 minutes of the 
next-to-last CSI of the season for a TOR. BTDT...)

I think it's unfair to say that TV stations don't take their public 
service obligations seriously, or put them behind ratings and revenue. 
We certainly take those responsibilities seriously, and I couldn't tell 
you how many times we've interrupted primetime during a sweeps month for 
wall-to-wall weather coverage. We've also interrupted prime for 
AMBER's--thankfully, not often. It's not always pretty-looking 
television, but we get the info out quickly and accurately. I've told 
our ops manager that I hope and pray that we never have enough AMBER's 
to get good at it... I realize that there are stations who don't take 
these things seriously, and that's unfortunate, but I think the blame 
can be spread across both TV and radio...

As far as policies and rules, you're right--ultimately, it's the GM (and 
sometimes PD) who decide. We're fortunate to have a GM and corporate who 
put public service first. It's the right thing to do, but we've also 
found that it's good business to be known as the station to turn to for 
emergency info...

And finally, TV stations who ignore their public-service responsibility 
are digging their own grave, considering that such responsibilities are 
a big part of the justification for opposing the current push for a 
"spectrum grab"...

ak

On 5/18/2011 11:59 PM, Alex Hartman wrote:

> Comcast i guess must have a policy to bury the tests in the middle of
> the night, since that's the only time they ever do them around here.
> The local stations seem to do the same though, now that i think about
> it, i have seen a daytime EAS test, it was during some paid
> programming at 11am on the local MyNetwork affiliate.
>
> But again, to the point of the AMBER alert on TV, the news people
> think they're doing a better service by putting it in the evening news
> cast, when in reality, the point of the AMBER alert is early detection
> typically results in better chances of finding the kid. I've NEVER
> seen a TV station forward an AMBER alert via EAS.  Only the local NBC
> affiliate has ever put up a scroll at the bottom about it, but none of
> the other stations have.
>
> Point is, TV has viewership, but they care more about ratings and not
> messing that up, whereas radio has natural breaks with a human being
> (usually) and can talk about the alerts, or even break in the middle
> of a set to bring the news. Most radio broadcasters believe this is
> their "civic duty" part of their license. This is why they're there
> most of the time. To keep the public entertained, but informed as
> well, whereas TV is much bigger money, especially during a network
> show or even a popular local show, and wouldn't dare break programming
> for a missing child, or civic emergency.
>
> It's not the fault of the engineering staff, as long as the box does
> what it's supposed to, your job is done. It falls squarely on the PD
> and GM who set these policies and rules. It's just being a good
> broadcaster to not ignore the little box in the corner that's usually
> seen as the "necessary evil" known as EAS.