EAS in Mass

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:07:07 +0000, Sid Schweiger <sid@wrko.com> said:

> First: All weekly tests must be run on random days at random times
> [47 CFR §11.61(a)(2)(i)(A, B & C)].  Burying them overnight
> consistently = a hefty contribution to the federal treasury.

It is quite clear that they don't actually mean "random" (and no
station actually does that).  WBZ, for example, has a few specific
times of day when the RWT runs, none of which are normally injurious
to the format.  (I hear them most often in place of another element
between :30 and :45 after the hour.)  Similarly, WBUR only runs RWTs
during the parts of the hour that they are local and have enough slack
in the clock.  (I usually hear them during the bottom-hour break in
the BBC World Service overnights -- I don't normally listen to other
dayparts so I can't say how they work them in then.)  In ten years of
subscribing, I've only once heard XM do any kind of EAS test, and
they're required to do them as frequently as other multichannel
delivery systems.

My understanding is that the Commission is perfectly happy if you
always do them at the same time relative to the daypart in which they
air, so long as you do a different daypart and a different day each
week, even if the schedule is completely deterministic.  And they
allow you to skip doing an RWT during the week when the RMT is run.

-GAWollman