[EAS] Data about emergency warnings

[Sean Donelan]

On Sun, 28 Aug 2016, Robertm wrote:
> I have not observed that problem here. Radio stations that need them 
> have direct TV audio feeds. I, myself, am strictly OTA so I only get 
> what a station airs. Over 15 years and 3 major disasters I have never 
> heard of an EAS activation nor has it been required.

This seems to be an example of "My house has never burned down, therefor 
smoke detectors are worthless."

Unfortunately, there isn't very good nation-wide data on how EAS is used, 
how people learn about emergencies (other than from another person is 
usually the #1 source), or how effective various systems are.

Arbitron has a study from the hurricanes in 2004.  A hurricane is an 
example of a advance warning hazard. There are usually several days of 
advance warning.

http://www.arbitron.com/downloads/hurricane_summary.pdf

75% of people in the Arbitron study said they heard or saw EAS 
announcements.

52% of stations said they broadcast EAS announcements.

Ratings of news/talk stations increased during hurricanes.  Interestingly 
non-news/talk also gained ratings during hurricanes.

2/3 of radio stations in the arbitron study simulcast during storms, which 
may partially explain the previous ratings increase of "non-news/talk" 
stations.

For short-fuse warnings, the current viewer/listener universe is disperse 
over a lot of different mediums.  The Cable Act of 1992 mandate for cable 
systems to participate in EBS/EAS was an early example of that.  There was 
an outbreak of killer tornados, and a lot of anedoctal reports of people 
watching satellite cable channels in their homes and not hearing about the 
local tornado warnings.  So Congress "did something about it."

After every disaster, there is always a news story about heroic reporters 
doing an amazing job.  But there isn't as much data about what all the 
other media outlets did (or didn't do).

It would be great to have some data, instead of anedoctal reports.