[EAS] FCC NPRM on improving EAS just issued

[Ed Czarnecki]

I'm not sure "dominance" is the best term.  Broadcasting is one tool, among
many.  And the FCC and FEMA (I think - educated guess) know this - that's
why the NPRM is explicitly starting to explore OTT, tablets, online services
- they want to get the alert to where the people are (which may not be by a
radio or TV at the moment).

But, then lets look at human behavior.  FEMA and others have cited research
where the public will generally seek to validate an alert from one source
with others.  I'd suggest that behavior would be even stronger if alerts
come in via the Internet or OTT.  My first reaction would be to (1) validate
by finding that alert on other sources (radio/TV are still the good ol'
standby, even for the younger generation) and (2) seek out the source with
the most information ... which would still be radio/TV EAS (more
text/content then even the proposed expanded WEA alert).

So, rather than dominance, I think the discussion is more about where and
how broadcast fits into this new alerting paradigm.  Broadcasters have taken
to calling themselves "first informers."  Perhaps more importantly,
broadcasters are the "most informers" - with longer/more complete EAS
messaging.

Also, don't discount that the broadcast medium is still treated with more
"trust" than other media (i.e. the Internet), where info is received with a
bit more skepticism.

-----Original Message-----
From: eas-bounces at radiolists.net [mailto:eas-bounces at radiolists.net] On
Behalf Of Mike McCarthy

I have to agree with Ed here. There is value to the one relay daisy chain.
 I won't go into all the subtle, but equally valuable attributes of this
model, but if one logically thinks about it, they will conclude the same.
Conversely, the multiple daisy chain system is significantly lower in value.