FCC Issues $8000 Fine for Radio Station Where EAS Messages Could Not Interrupt Programming During All Hours of Operation
With very limited exceptions, all broadcast stations are required to participate in Emergency Alert System, and to transmit any alerts that they may receive during their hours of operation. The FCC has just proposed to issue an $8000 fine to a station that allegedly had a working EAS receiver (unlike some of the stations we havewritten about before who were fined for EAS violations when their receivers were not connected or otherwise inoperable when the FCC inspectors came knocking). But, here, the issue leading to the fine was that, while the station could receive the EAS alerts, it could not rebroadcast those alerts without a station employee manually reducing the volume of the normal programming that was running at the time. While such a system is not prohibited, the FCC fine arose as the station was not manned during all hours of operation. During those hours when the station was not manned, their EAS equipment did not provide for an automatic override of the programming, and thus any alerts could not be passed on over the air. The lack of any automatic system for getting EAS alerts on the air during the hours when the station was operating in the unattended mode resulted in an $8000 fine, and a condition requiring that the station report in 30 days that it had come into compliance.
The emergency alerts system has traditionally operated on a "daisy chain" basis – where primary EAS stations receive alerts from governmental sources, pass on the alerts to other stations, which in turn relay that message to other stations on down the line. If any link in the chain is broken, then the alert does not reach the public listening to those stations further down the line. While thenew CAP system does not rely on this daisy chain (as it has all stations polling the FEMA – the Federal Emergency Management Agency - IPAWs alert system directly with an Internet connection), the older over-the-air daisy chain remains in place as a back-up to the Internet based system. This case shows how seriously the FCC takes violations of its requirements. Safety issues are a high priority for the FCC, so check your compliance now.
While the CAP system sends alerts to stations through the internet, rather than through an FM or weather radio receiver, this doesn't change the way the EAS box gets alerts on the air--by interrupting the program line.
On some of the newer units you can control the unit from a computer; and set priorities for different types of alerts, including delaying the relay of the alert. So stations that are live part of the time could allow their operators to either play these delayed alerts (such as severe thunderstorm or winter storm watches) at more natural program breaks. Or just cancel them, and repeat the weather warning live.
With this flexibility, there really doesn't seem to be any reason not to have the EAS unit installed so it would automatically interrupt programming when the station isn't manned.
I wish the FCC would treat just as seriously,
state committees which fail to address the problem
of monitor assignments that are impractical, even
impossible to use. Even with secondary LPs assigned
many rural stations are finding their assignments are
flakey, despite expensive investments in antennas, amps
and filters.