[EAS] FCC Seeks Comment on Multilingual EAS

[Tom Taggart]

1. Back to the thread.  The MMTC is a lobbying group, and, as such, must drum up controversy to keep the rent paid on their corner offices in D.C.

They are the same group who caused the Commission to create the idiotic requirement that we have "non-discrimination" language in written sales contracts.  Simply because minority stations were being excluded by the agencies when they sent out requests for rates and avails.  Disregarding the fact that for most of us our only power over the agencies is to say "no" when they want $2 gross rates & free spots all weekend.  Also disregarding the fact that most "sales contracts" consist of an exchange of e-mails.

As noted, EAS was created in response to the modern world of radio where most outlets are unattended if not just on weekends and evenings but also through most of the day.  Therefore the responsibility to generate the warnings lies with the government-FEMA, NWS, state emergency centers.  This notice would appear to go beyond that and require station follow-up to the alert. And in more than one language.

When such a notice (as here) is generated, it is the bureaucrats ticking boxes.  Unfortunately, will not matter from here on what most broadcasters say in response.  This administration is not big on common sense.   If Clay and Richard Rudman file comments that support in any general way WHAT THE COMMISSION WANTS TO DO, their words will be twisted as needed to get the desired results.

The MMTC is undoubtedly fishing for grant money, or another lever with which to extort money from the big operations.

2. As many of you know, I own three small stations in WV.  When the "Derecho" hit in July 2012, my B-1 and the 1490 station in Marietta, Ohio were the only ones on in our market-and I had to get up early that Saturday morning to make a 90 mile round trip to get us back up with a kilowatt. Our geni won't run our 10 kw, and my backup transmitter was running one of our other stations. Since that Class A was off air with no power that morning, I grabbed that kilowatt transmitter, tossed it in the back seat of the car, and got to my main station by 7.

Once I got the station on air that Saturday morning, our part-timer started in immediately reading off what information he had.  He was joined by another one of our part-timers around ten. Of course it helped that the first "part-timer" taught media at a nearby college, and had some 20 years experience in radio (including PD at a small cluster in Wisconsin).  Later that day, I jeeped in audio from a TV in the control room and we ran the 6 and 11 o'clock newscasts from the local TV station. They had generator power at both studio and transmitter-but of course, no-one could watch TV with no working cable.

I left to get a studio going at one of the big clusters in town (which included the primary relay station).  They only had one class A on-air, dead carrier, because their antenna was on the tower of the TV station.  After stringing a couple of hundred feet of extension cords from a portable 5 kw geni, I got audio up to that Class A.  Unfortunately, their weekend staff had no clue what to do next, so they started the automation system...

3. In 1975, when what is now the primary relay came on the air, there were eight other stations in my market. We now have 22 AM/FM stations, not counting the LPFM's, two of them my FM's. Some weekends there may be more people at my stations then there are in the entire Clear Channel cluster in town.  Some dreamers in Washington may think they can mandate a return to the 70's with stations fully-staffed 24/7.  But this is not going to happen-and even if such a mandate was issued, it would mean the quick death of many independent operations. Not the clusters-who would "staff" with a part-timer watching TV in a back room.

If there are second-language broadcasters in an area, the burden falls on those broadcasters to have bi-lingual and trained staff to handle emergency communications.  Nothing in the rules PREVENTS such operators from doing just this.  However, basic economics does not support a Federal mandate to provide such services.

3. Third topic..off thread. One company owns a substantial chunk of the radio stations in WV, and largely controls the WV Broadcasters Association. Their corporate chief chairs the WV EAS committee, a largely closed and secretive group. Last fall they started talking about revising the state plan-and circulated a draft. In the draft were numerous errors, including the listing of one station that went off the air several years ago-a station owned by the same group who own the local primary relay in my market. Errors were pointed out, with a suggestion that they consult this wonderful new invention called the "internet."  Nothing has been heard since from either the WVBA or the state EAS committee. Yes Clay, there are places where there is no-zero-zip -coordination or cooperation.