[EAS] ESPN Does it Again

[Sean Donelan]

On Wed, 18 Aug 2021, Dave Kline wrote:
 If you read the NAL you'll see this was not a first offense.
 And part of their explanation included that they had several people in 
 the organization review it prior to use.

I mostly see NALs for intentional use of EAS tones (or failure to 
supervise) in pre-recorded advertisements and entertainment programs.

As far as I can recall, and quick search, the FCC has never fined or even 
reviewed "live" news reporting which might contain EAS or WEA tones 
accidently (or on purpose).  Such as during a live, person-on-the-street 
interview and a cell phone alert goes off.

Most (all?) of the NALs have been for pre-recorded advertisements and 
"entertainment" programming. The few "live" NALs have been DJs doing 
entertainment bits on the air, again not news, KSHE in St. Louis and 
Bobby Bones syndicated from Nashville.

The FCC did one NAL for a station mistake during an EAS test, and a 
downstream station filed a complaint about advertising during in the 
audio.  But the radio community rose up, and the FCC eventually came to 
its senses.  I regularly hear mistakes in LP-1/LP-2 tests, but the FCC not 
issuing NALs for botched tests or even mistakes during actual EAS 
activations.

I understand why content creators want to use EAS tones in their ads, it 
gets people's attention.  But that's also why I more or less agree 
with the FCC being strict in these cases.

Finally, the FCC hasn't said a peep about the tones in the movie "The 
Purge."  The sound engineer for that movie did a remarkable job for making 
new unique alert sounds, yet familar.