Bad News, Good News

Reader Jeff Patterson passes along two stories from the broadcasting beat. First: In a bizarre case of a punishment not fitting the crime, the Washington TV station WJLA has been fined an astonishing $8,000 for failing to display closed-caption information during a storm report. Why the high penalty? Because the FCC believes that this error is "analogous" to "failure to install and operate Emergency Alert System equipment." (The EAS was not involved with the alert in question.) Two other stations face $16,000 fines -- seems they made the mistake twice.

Patterson, who works in TV himself, comments that it's "the consensus of myself and my counterparts at several other stations that the easiest way to insure we won't get in trouble for improperly captioning our weather alerts is to just not do them."

On the brighter side, Wired News describes the possible emergence of roadcasting:

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are developing an ad hoc networking system for cars that would allow any driver to broadcast music to any other vehicle within a 30-mile radius….

The system -- still largely theoretical -- will also feature a collaborative-filtering mechanism that compares music in a recipients' collection to that of the broadcaster. The filter will pump out a mix of songs matching the listener's tastes.

There are more practical applications as well:

Using 802.11p technology, a Wi-Fi variant designed for vehicles, mobile ad hoc networks would serve two important purposes, [analyst Dan] Benjamin said. First, vehicles with built-in 802.11p could serve as nodes in mesh networks and send each other safety notifications in case of accidents, or potential accidents. Acting as nodes in a mesh, each car would extend the network's signal a mile at a time.

Secondly, Benjamin said, vehicles with such technology could serve as nodes and pass on traffic information that would help drivers choose the most efficient routes to their destinations.

Comments

[smacky]

As a computer scientist and nerd, this fascinates me.

[Jeff]

You don't think Clear Channel would try to do anything eveil, like block this technology, do you?

[E-Rock]

Well, I fill the same demographic as Smacky, and I think this is the stupidiest fucking thing I've ever heard.

Customizing the playlist to the listeners is neat, but for commercial entities it would be counter productive (how do you brand yourself when all the stations are the same).

Of course, if I've somehow got my music collection on hand to compare against this WiFi library, I ain't listening to the radio in the first place, or am doing so to hear something other than what I already have on hand.

Traffic routing and notifications, again sound cool, but do you want a transmitter in your car broadcasting your speed, location and environmental information? Probably not on this forum.

[Anon]

I'm unclear on the comment attributed to Patterson (never knew he worked in TV): If the fine were _smaller_, would they then bother to get the captions right, or would they not worry about captioning because the fine is negligible?

I'm assuming weather alerts are issued only in serious circumstances -- hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. I find it hard to believe that a local station (that wishes to retain any viewership) would refuse to broadcast such warnings. And it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask that those warnings be properly transmitted to those who get their information via closed captioning.

If, on the other hand, Patterson means that the stations will stop trying to scare the public with a holy-crap-its-raining reports that simply involve inclement but not dangerous weather...well, I have no problem with that, either.

Anon

[Jack William Bell]

Cory Doctorow describes a very similar scenario in his novel 'Eastern Standard Tribe':
http://www.livejournal.com/users/

Only Cory's concept was better thought out and had the added advantage of making it possible to pay your toll on the road by sharing your tunes.

[Jeff]

Anon: Re: my comment.
A News station worth its weight can get a weatherman on screen with radar graphics inside of three-five minutes. Usually stations all try to beat each other to air with weather alerts, especially if tornados are involved.
Properly entering and encoding the text for closed captioning (at least captioning compliant with FCC regs) takes another five-ten minutes.

Anything scripted (like a newscast) usually generates it's own captioning. Something ad-lib, like a local weather cut-in, either has to have "rough" captioning written ahead of time or needs to be typed by someone while the weatherman is talking. Neither is easy. Or quick.

I also doubt stations will stop running alerts. It is just frustrating the amount of hoops we have to jump through when as little as a single viewer complains.

[Hmm.]

"In a bizarre case of a punishment not fitting the crime, the Washington TV station WJLA has been fined an astonishing $8,000 for failing to display closed-caption information during a storm report. ... Two other stations face $16,000 fines -- seems they made the mistake twice."

Wouldn't you have delivered a better punch if you'd started with the two stations' being fined $16,000, rather than with the one station's being fined half that?

[Jack William Bell]

Whoops. Wrong URL for 'Eastern Standard Tribe'. Here:
http:/www.craphound.com/est

[dead_elvis]

The traffic thing is a huge leap. How many times have you sat in traffic wondering if the bottleneck up ahead is just something on the side of the road that makes everybody rubberneck, or is it a serious accident that will take hours to clear, or is it just a merge, or what? Just having some sort of communication up and down the highway would be nice. It also might be possible to IM a cop when some shithead flies by at 100mph, weaving in and out. One could also warn of speed traps more efficiently than the current high-beam flash. Just have to make sure there is some way to ensure anonymity on the network.

[keith]

Jesse,

Are you seriously calling an $8K - 16K fine an "astonishing", "high penalty"? As an action against a private citizen, I'd be right there with you, but for network affiliates? I don't buy it.

The legitimacy of the FCC charge can be debated, but the scare language doesn't help me be sympathetic to these stations.

[SR]

If this results in television stations not running weather alerts I would be a very surprised, yet very happy, man.

[Luke]

Fuck deaf people.

We've been tampering with natural selection way too long.

Besides, so what if the emergency broadcast wasn't in closed caption? Couldn't they read the REST of the graphs, charts, and numbers or pay attention to the other hysterics on local news then compare that to the rest of the stormy as shit weather outside of their window?

I say fuck deaf people.

Try THIS closed caption on for size.

[TwoLiveCrew]

This is a mistake: They actually meant "def" people not "deaf" people.. the CLOSED CAPTIONing was in English not Ebonics and thus....

nah mean?!

[keith]

Jeff:

I'm familiar with watching local tv in bars with the sound off and the CC on. Often, the transcription is somewhat garbled or has some typos, and I can't specifically recall a weather alert (though I'll pay attention from now on whenever I see Hurricane Schwartz's mug when I look up from my mug!). But the local news and weather promos do tend to be CC'd; I'll go with your experience and assume they've been scripted though it doesn't always seem that way to me.

But I do recall seeing weather alerts by way of text crawl under an uninterrupted program (much more often than a live interruption, actually). Would deploying a simultaneous crawl that covers the meat of a human cut-in be a CYA strategy for TV stations?

On this reflection, I think I like the idea of a crawl that doesn't preempt the program better anyway. Unless a map visual is really necessary, why cut away from the ongoing program?

Or does this fail the FCC's rules in the event that "American Idol"'s own captioning overwrites an emergency crawl?

[E-Rock]

dead_elvis: Traffic updates in the car (an icon on the navigation system perhaps) would be awesome, but this doesn't seem like the answer at all.

If we put a box in each car with a button for reporting an accident, how reliable is that data going to be? (If you're thinking good, put a SUV full of kids into the model.)

[Jeff]

Keith: I should specify that I can't speak for all stations. I work at a backwards one with stone knives and bear skins, and CCing here is a bitch.
Most promos, however, are scripted ahead of time.
I worked with a newscaster who did the promotional voiceovers over end credits and tried to be hip. He once began a voiceover with the words "Hey News-Dudes! Bummer in Washington today as congress..."

And don't laugh: we had to rethink our lower-third graphics so they wouldn't clash with Idol's on-screen mess.

[Jesse Walker]

Interesting that Keith thinks I'm overselling the story while Hmm thinks I'm underselling it.

Anyway ... to answer Keith's question: Yes, for an infraction like that, I'd call that a very high penalty.

[Eryk Boston]

I can't wait to see the police screaming for restrictions as soon as people use the networks to relay speed trap locations.

[crimethink]

E-Rock,

Well, you could set up a system that tells you how many vehicles are reporting an accident; if 50 report an accident at the same place, chances are it's not just 50 carfuls of kids who've run out of Veggie Tales DVDs.

[Troy]

As an original nerd, I owned a TRS-80 color computer in 1982, this sounds totally cool. The interstate system, especially back east, could become a defacto part of the internet.

[Jerry]

Eight thousand bucks would be a hardship for an small market radio station where they sell commercial time for $8.50 for a fifteen second spot and ten bucks for thirty seconds.

[Devin McCullen]

This is tangentially related to an idea I've had for a long time: a setup where every car has a phone in it, and the phone number is the license plate number. So you can call the guy in front of you doing 45 in the left lane and say "Move over, ^$(@*#!".

Actually, this might save a step, so you can just say "Call the car in front of me."

[Stevo Darkly]

Fuck deaf people.

You know what would be cool? If I had that put on a tee-shirt. And then I would go to a bar, and go over to where a bunch of hot chicks were standing/sitting. And when one of them asked me, "Why would you have such a horrible saying on your tee-shirt?" I would cup my hand to one ear and say, "What? What did you say?"

Thereby transforming me from an insensitive lout to an advocate for the hard of hearing -- with a chance of personal gain, to boot.

That would be cool.

[smacky]

E-Rock,

To clarify my view on this: I think the traffic node implementation would be really useful in preventing traffic (network) gridlock, and the idea of having a system available to preview driving routes is novel in a good way. However, I think the music "roadcasting" is fucking stupid. I guess I should've made myself more clearerer.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

This is tangentially related to an idea I've had for a long time: a setup where every car has a phone in it, and the phone number is the license plate number. So you can call the guy in front of you doing 45 in the left lane and say "Move over, ^$(@*#!".

Better put on vital stats too. A guy cut me off and I flipped him off. He then followed me five miles to my place of work. He got out of his car, storming at mine. When I got out and stood up, he slowed considerably. I'm not a big guy, but I'm well-built, and 6'2". He was slight, and MAYBE 5'7". Maybe because I drive a small car and he drove a Lexus, he thought that carried over into stature.

My car calls his and flips him off, his car calls mine and asks how big I am. His car finds out and says "Tell the driver I'm sorry for cutting him off"

[Anon]

Jeff:

This is probably too late for response, but out of curiosity:

Given that the weather alert is taken as part of "the emergency broadcast system", is it considered unacceptable to have a generic caption along the lines of "Severe thunderstorm warning, people in [these areas] are advised to [do this]"? The weatherman could read the pre-formatted statement along with the rest of the weather alert. All the crucial information would be relayed but not the complete forecast. I was just wondering if you thought something like this would pass muster with the FCC, since its primary concern (again, quite reasonably, I think) is that the hearing impaired have reasonable access to emergency information. I certainly don't think they care about the overall quality of the captioning, given how poor much of it is for live or almost-live broadcasts.

My initial assumption was that the complaint simply triggered the FCC's own review of the broadcast, and the broadcast was found wanting based on the FCC's standards. I guess I am more sympathetic to this notion of a single complainant bringing an incident to the FCC for review _by the FCC acording to its own stated standards_ than to (say) the PTC's usage of the FCC as their own personal hammer of decency. At the same time, I can understand why an esclating fee for repeat offenders might be more effective and more reasonable than imposing burdensome fines right from the get-go. I don't know enough about affiliate budgets to know how that scale would work.

And on a completely unrelated note, thank you for (via your sidebar) reminding me about Astro City: The Dark Ages. I had completely forgotten that that was due this summer. Sweet.

Anon

[kwais]

As an unintentional collector of speeding tickets, I really like the idea of this technology being used to warn of speedtraps. Also, it is cool to tell the slower drivers to get out of the fast lane, it might relieve the necessity for some road rage incidents.

[kevrob]

Our local Emergency Alert System runs the occasional test, and I always seem to catch it the same way. I'll be watching our ABC affiliate, which tape-delays Nightline by an hour, and `round about midnight that familiar ***squeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaalllllllllllll*** comes ripping out of the speaker.

So what I wanna know is this: Why don't the clowns at the affiliate stop the tape, rewind it, and restart it when the damn phony alert is over? And why doesn't the alert ever interrupt the commercials, instead of the program?

Sometimes I hate being a news junkie.

Kevin

[Jennifer]

Seems to me the main point, and whatmakes this so idiotic, is that legally, a television station is better off letting NOBODY know about an upcoming tornado, rather than giving a warning that can be understood by at least ninety-five percent of their viewing audience. I can see the argument for requiring CC for EBS alerts, but why should it be rewuired for anything else?

[Anon]

Jennifer,

This is why I asked what the nature of the broadcasts were. Since we are taking about serious regional weather emergencies (which may require evacuation of residents), I have no problem with a government effort to ensure that as many people as possible (even "just" the 5% who are hearing impaired) get the message. It seems to me that a fine is the one way to do that -- the issue is only what a reasonable/proportionate fine should be.

For the record, I think that this is one of those circumstances where it will always be suboptimal (financially) for a broadcasting corporation to attempt to be comprehensive (i.e. try to reach everyone) rather than efficient (i.e. reach as many people as they can without affecting their bottom line too much). But I also have no doubt that comprehensiveness should be the goal.

Another approach to encourage comprehensive behavior would be to provide subsidies rather than fines, but I assume that any subsidy for emergency broadcast CC would have to be substantial in order to be worthwhile for affiliates. And I'm not clear that it wouldn't require more active/intrusive oversight by the FCC to make sure the money was being properly spent. A fine system still seems a better way to go.

Anon

[Jennifer]

Anon-
But the problem here is that this was a VOLUNTARY tornado alert. If a television station will be penalized for voluntarily doing something, they will just choose not to do it at all.

Think of this: when I was teaching English, one of my tasks was to correct any students' spelling mistakes. However (and I argued about this with my administrators quite a bit), all spelling errors are NOT created equal. A 17-year-old who misspells "cat" is quite different from one who misspells "paleoarchaeology." So in my class, if you misspelled a word which was more sophisticated than what was required, I'd correct it but not penalize you. My administrator said this was unfair; I said that the alternative would be to discourage students from doing any more than the absolute bare minimum.

This TV business was the same thing. That Washington station would have been better off keeping their mouths shut and telling NOBODY about the tornado warning. Do you actually think this would have been a better solution?

[Jesse Walker]

Jennifer: These were not EAS alerts. Indeed, in the case of WJLA at least, it wasn't even a weather "warning"; it was a weather "watch" announcement.

[Jeff]

Anon, Jesse partially answered your question.
Actual EAS alerts (and tests, for that matter) have automated crawls build in. Press one button and the alert tones go out and a text crawls over the top of the screen. This text contains counties/regions affected and the duration of the alert.
In the language of the FCC regs, it is okay for a station to forgo forwarding an alert it receives from National Weather or NOAA, provided it gets the information on air in a timely manner.
(Aside: this is primarily why EAS was not activated on 9/11. By the time an alert was crafted, every station was covering it)
In the case of the DC stations, they elected to do on camera updates. Weather is a big ratings grabber, and the fact that the infraction occured during a ratings period makes me think the stations were all jockeying for the most on-screen weather coverage.

As luck would have it, my station has an EAS inspection (by a Broadcasters association, not the FCC) next week. I intend on asking the inspector some questions about the Washington ruling.

I too am psyched for Dark Ages, but the Paul DiFilipo Top Ten series looks sweet as well.

[Jennifer]

Jesse-
Yes, I'm aware of that. My point (which I may not have expressed properly since I typed it during the pre-espresso part of the morning) is that if you penalize people for doing more than the minimum requirements, they'll have no incentive for doing anything more. HAD this been an EBS alert, I could maybe see the point of a penalty. But not for a voluntary weather report.

Like with my spelling analogy, it would be asinine to have a grading system where the kid who correctly uses (but incorrectly spells) "paleoarchaeology" is worse off than the kid who simply writes "the study of really old stuff," even if all six words are spelled flawlessly.

[Jesse Walker]

Sorry, Jennifer -- I should have addressed that comment to Anon, not to you.

[Anon]

Quick, surely incomplete response, because dammit I actually have to work today:

I missed the link to the actual ruling the first time around. I recognize that the reports were voluntary, but I'm more concerned about the definition of "emergency," as given in section...A 5., I think, of the ruling. It seems to me that during those types of events the government would like as many people as possible to receive the relevant information. It still seems to me that the problem is to get companies away from the suboptimal solution without getting them to shut down alerts completely. If the alert is important enough that people should leave their homes and go to shelters, an effort should be made to get that information to everyone.

Jennifer, given your classroom example, what do you feel the analogous action should have been with respect to the stations? Ask them not to do it again? I would note that the ruling suggests that the Commission has already done that:

"Since the adoption of the rules, the
Commission repeatedly reminded video programming distributors of their obligation to make emergency
information accessible [to the hearing disabled]."

I would also note that Jeff suggests that the stations were doing a bit of ratings grabbing -- which doesn't mean the alerts weren't justified. But as I said before, I don't mind if unnecessarily dramatic weather forecasts go the way of the ghost. But real, "there's been an industrial explosion" type reports will remain, and suggesting that stations need to give some thought to the hearing impaired when they prepare their emergency broadcasts is not inherently a bad thing. Unless the information is _EXTREMELY_ time critical -- "the tornado will land in 15 seconds" -- how difficult is it to take a moment to make a chart? Or to write TORNADO WARNING, GO TO YOUR NEAREST SHELTER on a piece of paper? (According to Section III, 11, one of the fined stations had already made up the necessary charts and had used them in the past.) I would argue that most of the time criticality doesn't have to do with the event -- it has to do with ratings, which really shouldn't be the FCC concern.

I feel that the fee is exorbitant, and the tidbit I mentioned in the previous paragraph suggests that the stations are making a good-faith effort to use aids understandable by the hearing impaired, so I would like a solution that cuts them some slack. But (though it pains me to say it), I don't think the ruling itself is _inherently_ unreasonable. I do hope Jeff reports on any Q&A he does with the FCC rep, however. I would like to know what the fallout of this policy has been -- because, again, I can't imagine that any station will really stop, say, giving tornado warnings.

Now, back to wo--er, time for lunch.

Anon

[Jennifer]

Anon-

My solution? Do nothing. Again, let me reiterate that if this were an Emergency Broadcast Alert I'd probably agree that a penalty was deserved, but this was a totally voluntary weather alert. A favor, in other words. If somebody is doing you a favor, you have the right to either accept it or reject it, but you goddamned well do NOT have the right to fine them because the favor they did for you wasn't quite to your liking.

(My classroom example doesn't hold up this far, because the reports kids did for me were not voluntary, whereas this alert was.)

[Anon]

Jennifer,

We'll just have to disagree. But I will note that, as far as the weather is concerned, news stations get a huge amount of information from fundamental government services like the NOAA. I see the stations as providing streamlined access to public information (which should _remain_ free, Rick Santorum), not as good samaritans sharing their weather secrets with me (as much as they try to convince me that Doppler Radar is some sort of alien technology that ONLY channel 5 can understand).

Anon

[Jennifer]

Anon-
I agree that Rick Santorum's bill is bullshit, but I must point out that the deaf people can access NOAA information just as easily as can the TV stations.