Happy Birthday, Terry Moss
As far as I know, Terry Moss’ first entrepreneurial venture was a monthly aircheck service called CAL-ROCK. As a young DJ, I was a subscriber.
His next contribution to radio personalities around the world continues to bring smiles to DJs and listeners alike: The first volume of what became a 5-LP series, Cheap Radio Thrills.
(Originally I had planned to mail all of my Preferred Customers a special offer this week: The Cheap Radio Thrills package — which now is 3 CDs — at half-price. I thought it would be nice to do something to get Terry’s audio baby into the hands of even more radio people. But I feared it would seem tacky, that I was using Terry’s birthday as an excuse for a sale.
(Finally I hit upon a compromise: Only the people who read this blog posting will know about the 50% discount offer, and I’ll take it down next week. Because there are thousands of people on my Preferred Customer List but, uh, fewer readers of this blog, that means just a few sales will be made — so few that I’m hoping it will protect me from accusations of greed.)
As any old American DJ will confirm, for many years radio stations were required to broadcast periodic tests of the Emergency Broadcast System. Here’s what the listener would hear:
For the next 60 seconds, this station will conduct a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The following is only a test.
That would be followed by this test tone:
Then the announcer would return to say:
This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The broadcasters of your area in voluntary cooperation with the FCC and federal, state, and local authorities have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency, the Attention Signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news, or instructions. This station serves the [ ] area. This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System.
Invariably the jock would read that copy in a monotone, there’d be silence, then the test tone, then the jock would return to read the close with the same disinterested inflection.
Terry decided to change all that — with these two cuts from Cheap Radio Thrills. Here’s the introduction:
After the intro, the test tone would be broadcast. Then this cut would be played, complete with a donut for the announcer to read the boilerplate copy that begins, “The broadcasters of your area…”
Question: As a listener, which test would you be more likely to pay attention to? The one delivered in the bored monotone, or the musical version?
Clearly far more people would actually listen to the musical rendition — which really upset the FCC. People actually paying attention to the E.B.S. tests??
So in its infinite wisdom, the FCC decreed that the Emergency Broadcast System test could not be sung.
Bored monotone that no one listens to = Good.
Entertaining version that many people listen to = Bad.
Tomorrow: Farewell to Terry Moss — with a little help from another Radio/Production Guy: Bobby Ocean.
Comments on this entry are closed.
Has the EBS ever actually been used? I hear the tests all the time but have never heard an actual use of the system during an emergency.
No, I don’t believe so. Thankfully. My most memorable encounter with EBS occurred on my very first day on the air: https://budurl.com/xe78
In Texas it’s used a fair bit for bad weather alerts and Amber alerts too.
I heard the EAS a lot in Maryland for NWS warnings. One such activation wiped out an interview our morning show host had with Erin Gray!
Here in North Dakota, it goes off for tornado warnings. We get quite few of those in the early summer.
That is just too funny. TOO funny. I’m wiping tears and looking for tissues. I’m practically embarrassed for how much I’m laughing.
That being said, the standard EBS is probably the best because we all, regardless of age, know it. We’ve heard it and we know the slight variation if it happens to be an emergency.
Besides, how would you limit the number of tunes that could be used for the broadcast? And if it’s only one then who gets THAT gig? That just opens a whole new can of worms. You could have a huge open discussion on this topic alone.
Ahh, but it is a fantastic idea. Sniff, giggle, snort.
@ Mandy: If it made you laugh, then wherever he is, Terry’s happy.
Dan: I’ve taken the liberty of sending the URL of your blog to the folks at CONELRAD.com, a site that chronicles best, worst, and strangest in Cold War culture.
Great post. Thanks.
-JW
@ Jim: Thanks! Pretty cool if Terry Moss can stir up a controversy even now….
For some reason this is not streaming for me. Also, unless I missed it, I don’t see a footnote or a citation on when the FCC issued its ruling on how the EBS test message should be read. I am interested in learning more about this. As of 1975 WHEN in Syracuse was still singing its EBS test messages.
If you’re not hearing the audio, that probably means your computer is not Flash-enabled. You can confirm that by checking your browser settings.
The Cheap Radio Thrills cuts were released and the subsequent FCC rule was enacted later than 1975.
While I personally prefer the sung test from a programming and entertainment perspective, I can kind of understand the FCC’s decision, since an EBS (EAS) emergency is serious business, even just a test. It would be akin to allowing children to skip through the halls during a fire drill at school.
@ Johnny: I agree that was the FCC’s perspective. But with the traditional EBS test, the audience simply tuned out. The EBS test had two goals:
1. To test the system. That was the only vital goal.
2. Secondarily, to educate the public on what to do in case of an emergency.
But there’s no way the public would be educated if they didn’t listen. The musical intro and the donut encouraged them actually to listen to the words spoken by the local announcer — which could only be a good thing.
In my past working as a young kid combo man. I played those donuts until the FCC banned them. Everyone loved them. Thanks for jogging the old memory banks.
I have to agree w/Johnny…not to sound like a humorless “suit” here (as I’m a fellow radio man and do appreciate the comedic value), but I do kinda get where the FCC was coming from, and their later decision to prohibit singing the test script or reading it in a comedic fashion…in fact, the FCC actually complained about WHEN in Syracuse using a jingle for the EBS test intro/outro, which lead to them passing said law.
If my memory is right, the EAS was accidently activated in about 1971 on a Saturday morning at 7:33 a.m. MST (when the weekly test was scheduled) when a civilian at NORAD command put the wrong tape on the teletype and it took a while to get it cancelled with the correct authenticator words. I was stationed in Arizona at the time and the only station in the state that complied correctly was located at Lake Havasu, AZ. The problem was the erroreous test was sent at the time of the weekly test and most station must not have read the copy.
I found this post because I specifically was searching for this audio. In 1990 at my first radio job, we used this jingle for our EAS tests…I had no idea until I read this post in 2011 that it had been banned in the 70’s. Interesting!
If this had been an ACTUAL emergency, you’d never know what hit you……
If this had been an ACTUAL emergency, you’d never know what hit you……