So how did the first nationwide Emergency Alert System test go?

These screenshots were what Charter Cable subscribers in Ripon saw, on WTMJ-TV (channel 4) at 1 p.m. …

… on WISN-TV (channel 12) at 1:03 p.m. …

… and on WCGV-TV (channel 24) at 1:04 p.m.:

I may be wrong about this, but I thought the EAS test was supposed to be simultaneous on every EAS-participating over-the-air and cable channel. I only got WISN and WCGV’s tests because I just happened to be flipping channels after the WTMJ test was over. Then, Telemundo (cable channel 17) had audio of a National Weather Service Required Weekly Test, which usually occurs Wednesdays at noon. Right day, but one hour and a few minutes late.

That wasn’t as strange as what apparently happened in Milwaukee, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

In our newsroom, we monitor four cable news networks. At 1 p.m., all of the stations interrupted  their broadcasts. But instead of showing a test alert, our Time Warner Cable service switched all of the televisions to QVC.

We wondered whether it might be a local issue, but after turning to the social media network Twitter, we saw people complaining about the same problem on different cable systems across the country.

• In the Washington, D.C., area, Twitter user @dmataconis wrote: “Did not see it on Comcast in northern Virginia. Instead, saw about 30 seconds of QVC (was watching MSNBC at test time)”
• In Los Angeles, @123arnie wrote: “For the Emergency Alert test, Time Warner Cable changed my channel to QVC, so when the test was over I could buy things.”
• In Milwaukee, Twitter user @marnerae01 wrote: “National Emergency Test turned TV to QVC. feel safer knowing if theres a disaster, I can purchase seasonal items for 3 EZ payments of $19.50.”

The New York Times notes other oddities:

Beginning at 2:01 p.m., viewers and listeners in many states said they saw and heard the alerts at the scheduled time, but others said they did not. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancies, but that was one of the purposes of the test — to find out how well the system would work in an actual emergency. …

Many of the reported failures affected cable and satellite television subscribers, and some were quite puzzling. Some DirecTV subscribers said their TV sets played the Lady Gaga song “Paparazzi” when the test was under way. Some Time Warner Cable subscribers in New York said the test never appeared on screen. Some Comcast subscribers in northern Virginia said their TV sets were switched over to QVC before the alert was shown.

In some cases the test messages were delayed, perhaps because they were designed to trickle down from one place to many. A viewer in Minneapolis said he saw the message about three minutes late. A viewer in Chattanooga, Tenn., said she saw it about 10 minutes late.

In Greensboro, N.C., a local reporter saw the alert on all the cable news channels but on none of the local broadcast networks. In Los Angeles, some cable customers said the alert lasted almost half an hour. …

“We always knew that there would probably be some things that didn’t work and some things that did,” a FEMA official said an hour after the test. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the agencies had not publicly acknowledged the glitches yet.

This appears to have gone about as well as the ESPN Y2K test:

It also makes one think that technological change is not always positive. Now that we’re in the digital TV era, we’ve all seen instances in which, instead of a snowy or fuzzy analog signal, there is no signal at all, or, worse, the picture is frozen in place for minutes or even longer.

For the conspiracy theorists, here’s a comment from CBS in New York:

It was supposed to fail. This is part of the mission.
When it fails on TV and radio stations, the government gets the opportunity to argue it should also target cellphones, and the power grid, and Internet service providers so that every means of communication is interrupted and may be controlled.

I maintain what I wrote Tuesday, that I have a hard time imagining, when the EAS wasn’t used for 9/11, what national — as in nationwide — emergency would require the White House to have the ability to override every TV channel. (Except, apparently, QVC.)

Meteorological Musings agrees:

The spin being put on this failure is, “well we had to test to learn were the weak spots in the system were.” Perhaps.

But, think of it this way: In a genuine emergency isn’t better that all of our notification eggs are not in one basket?!

Let’s retire the Emergency Alert System along with the TSA and put the money toward something useful like hardening our electrical system infrastructure. …

Of course, this being government, scrapping this deeply flawed and unnecessary system never occurs to them.

And some people still believe the government should take over health care and take a more active role in the economy.