Broadcasters, Emergency Managers Hash Out ATSC 3.0 Alerting

Broadcasters tout ATSC 3.0’s capabilities for disseminating detailed emergency information, but it’s not clear what form the standard’s advanced emergency information offerings will take and who will provide it, said participants at an Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance roundtable event at NAB’s headquarters Wednesday. AWARN’s roundtables are intended to help determine what advanced emergency alerting is, said AWARN Executive Director John Lawson, who's also the president of ATSC 3.0 alerting firm America’s Emergency Network.

There will be a “fight” over whether content should come from local emergency management entities or broadcast newsrooms, said One Media Executive Vice President-Strategic and Legal Affairs Jerald Fritz. Many broadcasters don’t have newsrooms to generate such content and “there are actually very few emergency management shops that have the ability to do this at the local level,” said Paul Lupe, assistant coordinator-technical services for the Fairfax County (Virginia) Department of Emergency Management and Security.

ATSC 3.0 could potentially allow viewers to receive “advanced emergency information,” which would consist of geotargeted options to receive more detailed information about local incidents, said Lawson. In a demonstration, the AEI appeared as an overlay alongside a channel’s normal TV programming, with options to allow viewers to view additional details, maps, evacuation routes and links.

For stations that create their own news programming, the station’s newsroom staff could create the additional emergency information content, possibly repurposing content created for a station’s website, said Fritz. “The critical feature is the integration of the TV news department with the service,” he said. Since disasters could happen any time of day, that sort of setup could require either constant staffing or some sort of automation, said Sinclair Director-Product Management Kevin Wong.

Local government emergency managers need to be certain that broadcasters will deliver their alerts quickly and reliably, said Sulayman Brown, Fairfax County’s emergency management department's deputy coordinator. “There’s got to be trust. I don’t know if we have that,” Brown said. He said broadcasters should engage more with local emergency authorities.

Most local emergency management entities don’t have the “bandwidth” to provide dedicated content for advanced emergency broadcasts, said attendees. Fairfax County is an affluent, large jurisdiction with dedicated public affairs staff, and likely wouldn’t provide the content, said Sandy Kenyon, a technical specialist in Fairfax’s emergency management department. Local emergency management departments can vary greatly in their experience and resources, said National Weather Service Physical Scientist Mike Gerber. “Smaller towns will tell you their emergency manager is the town mayor by day, emergency manager by night, used car salesman on the weekend,” said Gerber.

​​​​​​​Broadcasters are also likely to be concerned about proposals to give third parties portions of their FCC-licensed broadcast, Fritz said. The delineation between information from an alert originator and information from a newsroom would need to be extremely clear, said Matthew Straeb, of AEN.

Broadcasters are confident localities and emergency alerting entities will find a way to take advantage of 3.0's emergency information capabilities, said Fritz in an interview. Broadcasters don't need those applications for 3.0 to be widely adopted for the new standard to be worthwhile, he said: "We believe that once everybody understands what it can do, they're going to wholeheartedly adopt."