We’ve all caught them while we’ve been tuning into our favorite networks: regular tests of the Emergency Alert System (EAS). EAS is a national public warning system across broadcasters, cable television systems, radio and other platforms that allows the President to address the American public during a national emergency. The system also may be used on a state or local level to deliver important emergency information, like AMBER alerts.

On Wednesday, November 9 at 2pm ET, the U.S. federal government will be running the first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System. Distributors will be pushing the signal out across all U.S. networks, including Discovery’s. In response to an FCC request to inform viewers about the nature of the alert, Discovery will be running PSAs and crawls across our networks informing viewers that the 30-second message that will be preempting programming is only a test.

While we hope the Emergency Alert System is rarely needed, we appreciate everyone’s preparedness and understanding.