The cost of implementation of the text protocol is substantial and since most of the listening public receives no benefit from it, unwarranted. We agree that confusion results when key stations originate the same event on different co-located stations at different times. We also agree that EAS equipment should provide the option to rebroadcast an original EAS event without changing any fields in he header codes. Members of the television audience who are unable to see the video crawl will be left without any warning of any kind. The reduction in the quality and quantity of service is unwarranted and contrary to the public interest.
Petitioner raises valid concerns regarding the quality of the audio signal.
Most EAS decoders and encoders offer only minimal fidelity in their audio paths. Some delay the audio by a small amount of time as it is passed through the system, which will certainly cause the synchronization of audio and video to become disparate. We support modification of the rules to allow television broadcasters to transmit presidential messages from whatever they deem appropriate, provided, however, that the requirement to transmit the entire EAS message in the aural channel is retained. We have no preference as to the outcome of the proposal to restore the EAN Network. Because participation in the EAS at the local level is not for broadcast license renewal, we see no need for the Commission to further burden itself or broadcasters with the meaningless paperwork suggested by Petitioner.