Weekly, a Term Misunderstood

Most people who have watched TV in one form or another have heard the annoying Buzz Buzz Buzz of the FCC‘s Required Weekly Test of the Emergency Alert System.  It’s been going off in the middle of our favorite programs for years, muting the sound of the program it interrupted, turning up the volume, and proudly announcing that “This is only a test.”

This is such an important system that Congress has spent tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars developing it.

• They developed the CONELRAD System in 1951.  It was never used.
• They developed the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) in 1963.  It was never used.
• They developed the Emergency Alert System (EAS) in 1997.  It has yet to be used.
• They’re now working on iPAWS — the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System.  Want to bet it doesn’t get used either?

No emergency system has ever been used for a national emergency, in fact, since the beginning of radio and TV broadcasting.  Nothing has warranted it.

(EBS was activated more than 20,000 times between 1976 and 1996 to broadcast civil emergency messages and warnings of severe weather hazards, but nothing nationsl

“No president has ever used the current [EAS] system or its technical predecessors in the last 50 years, despite the Soviet missile crisis, a presidential assassination, the Oklahoma City bombing, major earthquakes and three recent high-alert terrorist warnings…” — The New York Times, January 3, 2002.

These systems are in place so the President can address the nation in 10 minutes via the 30+ radio stations designated as National Primary Stations in the Primary Entry Point (PEP) System.  From there, it spreads out and hits all the broadcast stations we listen to or watch.

Back to my point.  I was just watching a movie on TNT (I think it was) when the EAS interrupted with their “weekly” test for the 4th or 5th time that day.  I saw it once when my wife commented how it interrupted her morning show, again when I was at the doctor’s (same cable system we’re on), once in the afternoon, once in the evening, and then again once after midnight while watching an on-demand rerun (and yes, I was able to pause the rerun while the interruption occurred).

I have real trouble with math (unlike my kids, who are gifted at it), but even I can count past one, and I know what “weekly” means.  I thought I would write Time Warner Cable, but then figured it would be better to do research and make it a post.

Other than identifying the requirements for a broadcaster, and the one or two times where broadcasters did not run a weekly test, I was unable to find great detail on scheduling or the like.