Emergency Broadcast: Difference between revisions

All TV and radio stations are required to test their EAS systems at least once a month, with weekly tests required for feeder stations. Of course these tests usually warn that there's no actual emergency going on first. This has resulted in the phrase "This is a test. This is only a test" and the old two-tone EBS attention beep [[Memetic Mutation|becoming a part of popular culture]]. The new EAS alerts may or may not include a two-tone attention beep but always include an encoded ASCII string, repeated three times, which sounds like an old-school modem and is called a "chirp" or "duck farts" in the business. The string contains specific information as to the type of alert (or test) and the location of the emergency. Some modern weather radios can be programmed to only activate the alarm for alerts that apply to where the radio's installed and only for hazards that would actually be of concern to the area. In some areas the EAS test is unannounced and contains only the three ASCII chirps.

 

 

A national EAS test was performed on November 11, 2011. It showed that nationally, the system needed a little work: Some cable providers switched to their EAS feed station (usually QVC or another [[Home Shopping]] channel) without showing the test, others didn't state that a test was happening, and Direct TV viewers were hearing [[Lady Gaga]] instead of the test message.

* Subverted in the 2005 ''[[War of the Worlds]]'', when the standard American EBS announcement that it's "only a test", and not "an actual emergency", plays on the radio of the hero's car as he's driving through the decimated countryside. Presumably, as it ''is'' an extreme actual emergency, whoever was supposed to replace this generic transmission with warnings and/or instructions for the public is already dead. Also see the [[Shout-Out|radio show below]].

* Used dramatically in the [[Made for TV Movie]] ''Without Warning'', which interrupts the opening of another, ostensibly unrelated TV movie to inform the viewer that a meteor is headed towards Earth.

* Used at the end of ''[[Countdown to Looking Glass]]''.

* Shown briefly in ''[[Film/Testament|Testament]]''.

* The song "This is Only a Test" by American punk rock band Pennywise opens on distorted television sounds and the line "This is only a test of the emergency broadcast system, this is the product of hysterical mass confusion."

* Prong used an EBS test message in the song "Test" on their 1994 album ''Cleansing''.

 

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* ''Freakazoid'' parodied the EBS in an episode shown in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfgZnBaHbt8 this clip].

* In one episode of ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'', Hamton imagines himself being subjected to 60 seconds of the Emergency Broadcast System as a form of [[Cool and Unusual Punishment]].

* The National Film Board of Canada short ''The Big Snit'' takes place during a nuclear war and a TV is shown playing a parody of nuclear attack warnings.

 

== [[Fanfic]] ==

 

== [[New Media]] ==

* [[YouTube]] is full of uploads of EBS/EAS tests (as well as those for other systems outside the US.) There are also clips where the sound is used as a screamer, as well as plenty of parodies, remixes, mockups, and [[Youtube Poop]].

** One terrifying but wholly unrealistic [[YouTube]] original horror creation is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWt4Di6zr14 this.] It's the use of the NOAA weather radio emergency tone, civil defense sirens, and voiceover work to create a very simulated [[Emergency Broadcast]] of a [[The Deadliest Mushroom|nuclear attack]]. This is of course nothing like how a real attack would occur, but it's still scary.