Emergency alerts and their presentation, provided by the Emergency Alert System (EAS) or the local equivalent, need significant improvements for modern video interfaces including linear, streaming, and social platforms. These banner requirements go beyond the FCC regulations in order to provide a more inclusive emergency alert experience for everyone.
2.1.5-A
All emergency alert banners must support English and Spanish content in the United States. International platforms must also include the local language, along with any languages with a minimum of 10% usage, based on local census results. Alerts must use the language selected in the platform’s settings.
2.1.5-B
Platforms, apps, and websites that display emergency alerts via text-scrolling banners must ensure that both the visual and audio content of the alert are played twice before dismissing the banner. Video playback must not stop while the alert is present; it is required to be an overlay per the FCC. During the playback of the alert audio, all program audio must be muted.
2.1.5-C
After the second playback of the audio alert, program audio can resume even if the text scroller has not yet completed. Once the message has been displayed twice visually, the banner must dismiss and resume regular programming.
2.1.5-D
If the text scroller finishes displaying the message before the audio alert finishes playing, the banner should stay visually present (without text) until the audio completes. This ensures all users receive the full emergency alert.
2.1.5-E
Screen readers or text-to-speech (TTS) engines should not impact the emergency alert’s content. The alert banner must not be a focusable element to avoid interference with the alert content.
2.1.5-F
Closed Captioning must remain enabled during emergency alerts. The emergency alert should not disable or interfere with the rendering of CC content. All platforms, apps, or websites must detect the position of CC content and adjust the location of the alert and/or CC to prevent visual interference.
2.1.5-G
For real-time emergency alerts, pausing any video content should not halt the alert playback, which must continue playing in real time. For DVR recordings, emergency alerts should be embedded into the program and pause with the video.
2.1.5-H
When an emergency alert is playing, access to overlays (menus, settings, etc.) must be disabled until the alert completes. Users can still pause video playback, but this should not affect the audio of the alert. Mute functionality must always remain available.
2.1.5-I
When using a text-scrolling banner for emergency alerts, a single character should take approximately 10 seconds to scroll across the screen. The inclusion of audio playback or the program content type must not affect the scrolling speed.
2.1.5-J
Emergency alert banners must use a minimum of 64px for 1080p resolutions (2x/4x for 4K/8K respectively) as defined in section 1.1.2. Banners must render in the 2nd row from the top of the 15 horizontal rows included in the Safe Title Area. If Closed Captioning is enabled and aligned to the top, the alert must render in the 2nd row from the bottom of the 15 horizontal rows included in the Safe Title Area. If the user selected a font size larger than 100% in their Closed Captioning settings, the emergency alert banner and its content must scale as defined in section 1.1.2.
2.1.5-K
The background colors of emergency alert banners must follow FCC regulations and use green for tests, yellow for weather watches, and red for weather warnings, amber alerts, Emergency Action Notifications (EANs), etc.
2.1.5-L
Text in emergency alert banners must adhere to user-defined Closed Captioning font and font edge settings. The text color must maintain a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 and should use black text for yellow backgrounds and black or white for red and green backgrounds, ensuring legibility.
2.1.5-M
If a platform, app, or website fails to download the emergency alert payload content, it must retry for up to 120 seconds. If it still fails, a modal must notify the user of the issue and inform them to check for local information.