Re:Re: Amber Alert & WBZ

[Dave Faneuf <tklaundry@juno.com>]

---------- "Manuelian, Mark D" <MManuelian@cbs.com> writes:
>snip<
>WBZ has made a significant committment to EAS, but we certainly don't >get
>any advantage by being a primary station.  The WBZ newsroom will know >about
>any abduction at least 30 to 60 minutes before an AMBER alert, not >because
>WBZ took a leadership role (along with Chris at WHYN and a few other
>stations) in the AMBER program, but because our newsroom monitors the >State
>and local police communications on scanners.  Long before an abduction >is
>qualified and an alert is activated, there will be a general broadcast >on
>the state police radio system.

Dave responds:
If a child abduction that qualifies for the stringent threshold of the Amber Alert is known 30 to 60 minutes prior to Amber Alert being implemented then the system is pretty pointless.  Yes BZ as well as most other newsrooms monitor police comms as well as subscribe to services like Tac 9, EastCoast Wireless Paging or others but its my understanding the the Amber Alert, to be the useful tool it is supposed to be, needs to be implemented within minutes, so an event that is a half hour to an hour old would by definition not be something that would be subject to Amber Alert as I understand it.

Mark writes:
>Metro or any other network could pass EAS messages, but they would >have to
>set up their own EAS equipment on each feed to each station AND they >would
>have to train their staff to operate it.  Then all the affliates would >have
>to hook up their EAS decoders to the Metro line. 

Dave writes:
Yep, they'd have to buy equipment and train staff,  but Metro also reaches the most significant audience in the region.  Take a look at all the stations that implement Metro's services, including BZ, and see what percentage of the listening audience is involved.  If Amber Alert is to be really effective I would be looking at developing it through Metro at this point.


Mark writes:
>With regard to the time it takes an alert to propagation across the >state,
<snip>
>The Massachusetts plan relies on the LP stations to relay the alert.

Dave writes:
And as stated, the stations on the low end of the food chain could have the alert delayed significantly.

I am not criticizing the hard work you and others put into developing this system, just the opposite I applaud you.  My original post was a query as to why BZ's competitors would agree to allowing the only entry point for Amber Alert to be WBZ.
df