The Engineering Committee of the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) has approved a new version of the industry standard SCTE 18, Emergency Alert Messaging.

SCTE 18 2007 is available for free download from the Standards section of the SCTE Web site.

The standard, first published in 2002, defines an Emergency Alert Signaling (EAS) method for cable TV systems to signal emergencies to digital receiving devices such as digital set-top boxes and digital TV receivers. The EAS scheme allows a cable operator to disseminate emergency alert information related to state and local emergencies and warnings in an efficient way while minimizing disruption to programming.

As with the original issue of the standard, this revision of SCTE 18 has been a joint effort between the SCTE Digital Video Subcommittee (DVS) and Committee R8 of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), where it is published as CEA-814-A. The standard has also been submitted to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as J-STD-042 2007, a joint standard of SCTE and CEA that replaces the existing J-STD-042 2002.