The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released its Fifth Report and Order that revises its rules governing the Emergency Alert System (EAS). The Order, which is highly technical in nature and spans 130 pages, seeks to clarify and streamline the FCC’s Part 11 rules. Most importantly, it identifies the manner in which EAS Participants—which include radio and television broadcast stations, cable systems, wireline video systems, wireless cable systems, direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service providers, and satellite digital audio radio service (SDARS) providers—must be able to receive alert messages formatted in the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP). The Order also reiterates that all EAS Participants are required to be able to receive CAP-formatted EAS alerts no later than June 30, 2012. CAP is an Internet-based system that allows for more robust messaging, including audio and video alerts, and links to other sources of information about emergency information, instead of the simple text-based alert codes that come from the current system.

The FCC adopted the general requirement that EAS Participants be able to receive CAP-formatted messages in 2007 in the Second Report and Order in this proceeding. However, while it had established the deadline for CAP compliance (and twice extended it to the current June 30 deadline), it never adopted specific rules identifying equipment obligations or the procedures necessary to meet the new requirements. Even though final rules had not been adopted, many broadcasters and cable systems have already installed equipment assuming that it would meet final FCC rules. Accordingly, as the FCC notes, this Fifth Report and Order did not impose new obligations on EAS Participants, but rather specifies in detail how EAS Participants should implement this requirement.

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