[EAS] EAS and New CC Rules

[Richard_Rudman]

Some of us have tried to carefully and diplomatically point out to the FCC and the NWS that there are increasing disincentives for EAS Participants to, for lack of a better term, 'participate.' 

Since carriage of local and state EAS events is 100% voluntary, I know some licensees that have made the decision to opt out of carriage of NWS events due to what I have called 'message flooding'.

After almost two years of dialog with the NWS, nothing has been done on a nationwide basis to address that issue. Some local NWS offices have applied a throttle to weather warnings that has helped, but, as I said, there is no nationwide policy.

There is a good chance that the new Closed Captioning (CC) rules may leave TV EAS Participants that Adrienne mentioned in a bind where they feel they have to opt out of carrying local and state non-CAP EAS events or leave themselves open to a Rules violation.

For those of us who believe that there is still a value to local and state legacy EAS events, I do not see an easy fix for this problem.

If this helps to bring about a date-certain sunset for legacy EAS so the need for manual CC becomes moot, that would be a good thing. So far, I have seen nothing happening on a legacy EAS sunset date, and not much progress for more states setting up CAP so their local/regional warning agencies can issue CAP EAS events. 

Reminder: The USA still does not have a comprehensive written public warning policy, something the Partnership for Public Warning called for in its reports to the FCC, FEMA, and the NWS over a decade ago. Furthermore, IMHO that policy should be built on all EAS local and state EAS committees becoming a part of their respective state's emergency management structure, as they already are, defacto, in some states like Washington. Getting the FCC, FEMA and NWS out of the direct current management structure of EAS might help in lots of ways. Protocols to do this could be written into the National Incident Management System (NIMS).

Richard Rudman

On Mar 13, 2015, at 3:30 PM, Adrienne Abbott wrote:

> 
> It occurred to me this week when I was emailing information to my client
> stations about the new Closed Captioning rules that take effect Monday
> (March 16, 2015) that some TV broadcasters may use these "enhanced" rules as
> an excuse for not running non-CAP EAS activations, including those from the
> National Weather Service. Highly automated TV stations no longer have the
> Master Control or newsroom staff available to provide the text of a
> Legacy-style EAS message. This might be the impetus that non-CAP states need
> to add CAP technology to their emergency communications systems but even
> that doesn't resolve the situation with Our Problem Child--NWS--just as
> tornado season is upon us. 
> 
> 
> 
> Thoughts? 
> 
> 
> 
> Adrienne Abbott
> 
> Nevada EAS Chair
> 
> 
> 
> 
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