Kelly: The Emergency Alert System, is a mechanism that’s intended to allow the President to speak to the American people in times of catastrophic emergency.
Kelly: There have been a number of cases where a station gets an ad and it's in the ad.
To understand that, we have to go back to the height of the Cold War, and the systems that predated the EAS.
Frank: My name is Frank Lucia and I worked as an EAS Emergency Alert System Advisor to the FCC.
Frank: In 1963, the Emergency Broadcast System was established to expand the use of emergency information to all stations.
Under President Kennedy, they decided to let all the stations stay on their regular channels and provide the emergency information.
The Emergency Broadcast System, or EBS, is what most of us over the age of 35 remember from our youth. »