Three public radio and one public television outlet are the latest recipients of funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to upgrade their emergency alerting capabilities.
CPB awards the grants through a program funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The money helps public media upgrade equipment and receive training to enhance alerting and warning capabilities. The program prioritizes stations serving rural, tribal and underserved communities. CPB began distributing the grants last fall.
The latest four grants are part of $34 million in FY 2022 funding that CPB is awarding over two years:
- Delta College Public Media’s WDCQ(TV) serves a largely rural and underserved audience in the crook of Michigan’s thumb. It will receive up to $976,708 to replace broadcast infrastructure, making the station more resilient and be ready to transition to NextGen TV standards.
- Community Radio Project, which includes FM stations KZET, KSJD and KICO, serves communities in the Four Corners area of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. It will receive up to $54,750 for equipment, including new transmitters and backup power supplies, to ensure that stations stay on the air during an emergency.
- KSTK Stikine River Radio (CoastAlaska Inc.) is a community station serving Wrangell, Shoemaker Bay and North Wrangell Island in Alaska. It will receive up to $90,002 to improve its Emergency Alert System in the community and outlying remote areas. It will replace aging equipment, including a backup generator at the transmitter site, an EAS decoder replacement and a translator replacement.
- Silakkuagvik Communications Inc. station KBRW(AM/FM) serves a large Inupiat Eskimo population at the northern tip of Alaska. It will receive up to $98,853 to update critical equipment to ensure a dependable connection to their listeners and a reliable source of emergency messages.
This article originally appeared in our sister publication Radio World.
