Broadcast, cable and satellite industry officials on the FCC’s Me...
Broadcast, cable and satellite industry officials on the FCC’s Media Security & Reliability Council (MSRC) have adopted 49 best-practices recommendations aimed at keeping TV media functioning in the event of a major national emergency. Among the key recommendations: (1)…
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Media companies should post security guards and provide backup power and telecommunications systems at their key facilities. (2) News operations should have “robust and redundant” ways of communicating with news services and remote news crews. (3) Media companies in the same markets should negotiate reciprocity agreements so interconnections would be available if necessary to maintain media diversification. (4) Companies should write disaster plans, update then when necessary and practice them at least once a year. (5) Disaster plans should contemplate not only short-term disruption, but the possibility that studios and transmission facilities could suffer catastrophic damage. MSRC’s Public Communications & Safety Working Group recommended a single federal agency take responsibility for ensuring public communications systems and procedures existed, worked and were available to a range of other agencies. The working group also said the single federal agency should ensure lead responsibilities and actions were delegated at every level of government and that a national, uniform risk warning system capable of communicating all kinds of hazards be created based on what a broad range of public officials and the public at-large believed would best serve the public interest. MSRC’s 41 members received the recommendations from its 2 working groups in its last public meeting Nov. 6. The council finished voting on the recommendations Nov. 26. All 49 recommendations are posted at http://www.fcc.gov/MSRC.