EAS test interrupts final Letterman show for some viewers
YOUNGSTOWN
Perhaps this could be chalked up to a stupid human trick.
The final Top 10 list in the final broadcast of “The Late Show with David Letterman” was interrupted by an Emergency Alert System test at 11:50 p.m. Wednesday for some viewers in Youngstown’s suburbs.
“We received nothing, and we sent nothing” in connection with such a test, said David Coy, general manager of WKBN-TV 27, the local CBS affiliate that carried the Letterman program.
He noted, however, that WKBN’s signal is carried by three cable TV companies – Armstrong in Youngstown’s suburbs and western Pennsylvania; Time Warner Cable in Youngstown and Warren; and Comcast in southern Mahoning County and Columbiana County.
Those who experienced the EAS test were Armstrong customers.
Neither Dan McGahagan, Armstrong’s general manager in the Mahoning Valley, nor Dave Whitman, vice president of marketing at Armstrong’s Butler, Pa., headquarters, could be reached for comment as to whether a Wednesday night EAS test appeared on Armstrong’s logs or discrepancy reports.
Wednesday’s program was the last of 6,028 broadcasts in the 33-year run of the late-night Letterman show.
The interruption occurred during Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ No. 4 contribution to the final Top 10 list “Things I’ve always wanted to say to Dave.” She said: “Thanks for letting me take part in another hugely disappointing series finale.” That was followed by a slow burn from Jerry Seinfeld, her former sitcom co-star. Viewers forced to watch the EAS test never saw that exchange.
Coy said the only automated alert that would go out on WKBN-TV’s over-the-air signal would be a tornado warning or an Amber Alert related to a missing child or an abduction.
That station manually generates a weekly EAS test at various hours, Coy said.
It also generates a monthly automated EAS test at either 4:50 or 9:50 a.m., he added.
Dennis O’Hara, Mahoning County emergency management director, said he was unaware of the Wednesday test. “There was no emergency,” O’Hara added.
“It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” Marty Thompson, a hydrometeorological technician at the National Weather Service in Cleveland, said when a reporter called Thursday afternoon to inquire about the test.
“I don’t believe it originated from here. We have no record of it,” he said.
He said, however, the NWS did conduct its routine weekly weather radio test at 11:25 a.m. Wednesday.
EAS, formerly known as the Emergency Broadcast System, is a national public warning system that requires broadcasters and cable TV systems to offer the president of the United States the ability to address the public during a national emergency.
It also may be used by state and local authorities to convey missing children and emergency weather alerts for a specific area.
The National Weather Service uses EAS on a statewide and local basis to provide weather alerts and warnings.