July 4, 2015

Sometime station engineers, because of “workload” or “not being in the loop”, miss important updates from the FCC that affect the technical department.

Here is a brief outline of some of the more recent changes…

 Audible Crawl Rule:

The FCC adopted an Audible Crawl Rule back in April 2013.  This rule would require all television stations to present aurally on a secondary audio program stream (“SAP”) any non-newscast emergency information that a station presents visually.  As adopted, the rule would have required all emergency information presented visually to be fully conveyed verbally on the SAP twice, including weather maps and school closings.

The original deadline was May 26, 2015.  However the general compliance deadline has been extended per a request from the NAB by six months to November 30, 2015.

In addition the FCC announced that it will waive the requirement to aurally describe visual but non-textual emergency information.   Graphical information, such as a Doppler Radar map, does not contain text files that can simply be converted to speech.

However that waiver is for only 18 months.  Broadcasters now have until November 2016 before the FCC will require them to “aurally describe the critical details regarding the emergency and how to respond to the emergency . . . including the critical details conveyed solely by a map or other graphic display.” 

Video Description Obligation:

 As of Wednesday, July 1, 2015, TV stations affiliated with the Top Four networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox) in the top 60 markets are required to provide 50 hours of video description per calendar quarter.  In Alabama those markets include Birmingham (40) and Mobile-Pensacola (60).

In addition, the FCC noted that the video description rules require all stations to pass through video description when it is provided by their network if the station has the technical capability to do so. 

Revised EAS Rules:

As we covered in an Engineering Notebook a few weeks ago the FCC issued an Order updating its rules to establish operational standards to be used during national EAS tests and emergencies. Those revisions have now been published in the Federal Register, so we know that they will take effect on July 30, 2015.

Specifically, the Commission has adopted “six zeroes” (000000) as the national location code pertaining to every state and county in the U.S. in order to make EAS consistent with Common Alerting Protocol (“CAP”) standards.

The Order also adopted a new rule regarding the use of a National Periodic Test (“NPT”) event code for future EAS testing, which is designed to bring consistency to the operation of EAS equipment in future national, regional, state, and local activations.

Basically all EAS receivers will need to be able to receive the NPT code and respond to the national location code within one year from the effective date of the new rules.  That date is now set for July 30th, 2016.  The FCC is also setting up an Electronic Test Reporting System (ETRS), which be used to report reception of the National EAS Test.

The ABA will publish shortly a detailed information sheet on procedure for setting up the National Test filter in your equipment.  If you have questions concerning setting a new filter in your EAS equipment contact the Alabama EAS committee.

Radio Broadcast Engineering class July 13th – 17th.  Register online now.

ABA Corporate Sponsor

Larry Wilkins CPBE®
Alabama Broadcasters Association
334-303-2525