CURRENT ONLINE

Start Y2K contingency planning, specialists advise stations

Originally published in Current, June 7, 1999

By Steve Behrens

If your organization hasn't started finding and fixing its Y2K computer problems by now, it should look immediately to contingency planning, advised NPR engineer Marty Bloss last month. "This is going to take you longer than you ever imagined," he warned.

Contingency planning, or figuring out exactly how you will sidestep any Y2K problems that occur despite prevention efforts, is just as important as "remediation," or finding computer glitches and fixing them, agreed Christine Smedile Beinhacker, PBS's Year 2000 Project manager.

Stations need clear plans, ready to go, to maintain a reasonable level of broadcast service in case outside suppliers encounter Y2K glitches, Beinhacker said in an interview.

Bloss and others who have been worrying about Y2K for years or months spoke last month at the Public Radio Conference; Current spoke with several others afterwards.

It's important for broadcasters, as journalists, to understand Y2K problems so they can inform the anxious public as well as safeguard their own broadcast operations, said Marsha McBride, executive director of the FCC's Y2K task force, in a PRC session.

Suzanne Shwetz, NPR's Y2K coordinator, said that, as of March, fewer than half of stations and other surveyed pubradio organizations had completed their Y2K readiness projects for transmission, production and finance. Fewer than 30 percent had obtained Y2K assurance from their outside vendors, but half were at least checking on that. Half were making contingency plans, as of late March.

Bill Fawcett, who serves as contract engineer for 30 stations and as director of engineering at WMRA-FM, Harrisonburg, Va., said at the PRC that radio stations can generally "breathe easy" about their transmitters and should obtain the latest versions of all software for automation systems. [Detailed Y2K info on equipment from Fawcett on WMRA's web site.]

At KERA in Dallas, Chief Financial Officer Sam Cheng said station staffers decided to supervise their own Y2K effort after seeing consultants' cost estimates of $40,000 to $200,000 just for a study. They borrowed work plans and expertise from other organizations.

Cheng hopes to be almost done with the station's project by September or October. KERA will spend $100,000 to $150,000 on remediation, he said, mostly for replacement of computers with 386 and 486 chips.

Michael Black, g.m. of WEOS in Geneva, N.Y., said he began working on Y2K when he saw how snowstorms had wreaked havoc last winter. At his licensee, the Colleges of the Seneca, no one was thinking about Y2K, Black recalled. "I think we're going to be OK. Our university may have some problems."

NPR reported in a memo May 12 that technicians had tested and found no Y2K problems in subsystems of the Public Radio Satellite System and had begun offline, end-to-end testing. The prognosis for satellite operations in January, Bloss said, is "business as usual."

PBS expects to complete contigency plans by June 30 and its Y2K fixes and testing by Sept. 30, so that it can enjoy compliance for an entire quarter before year's end, said Beinhacker, who worked on a major Y2K effort for Andersen Consulting before coming to PBS.

One reason PBS wants to finish contingency plans by June is that some computer specialists fear software problems this September. In theory, the date "9/9/99" could be mistaken for the common computer code for "end of file."

NPR's Bloss said there are fears about computer failures at about 50 different points in time. At WEOS, Black found found one piece of software that could handle year 2000 but not 2001.

Steps toward a happy new year

Specialists on the Y2K beat suggested steps that may help avoid hang-ups:

  • Stretch your imagination and take an inventory of places where Y2K problems may arise, said Rick Ducey, senior v.p. of the National Association of Broadcasters, at the PRC. "There's plenty to worry about."

    Problems may arise in software written or customized by a high-school whiz who long ago left town, or in outsourced services that prepare payroll checks.

    Y2K problems may be tricky to find, but they may not affect as many pieces of electrical equipment as scare stories indicate. "The hysteria really has been a little too widely publicized," said Beinhacker.

    Many pieces of equipment contain microprocessors but don't keep track of dates, so they are Y2K-compliant by definition, she said. "The functioning of the system has to be dependent on a clock, or some sequencing or date comparison has to be going on," she said. As Fawcett noted about transmitters, "If it doesn't have a battery and a clock in it, you're probably OK." Editing equipment may "care" a lot about minutes and seconds in a time code, but has no interest in dates, said Paul Byers, director of engineering at WQED-FM/TV, Pittsburgh.

    Even software that displays double-digit dates like "99" or "00" may be compliant underneath, Beinhacker said.

  • Ask software and hardware companies and third-party vendors if their products and services are Y2K-compliant. Then decide whether you believe the assurances. PBS, for example, decided to rely on Bell Atlantic's assurances, said Beinhacker.

  • Test systems that are critical to your operations, even if the vendor says they're OK. "Don't trust; verify," urges Ducey.

    Testers simply reset the date to Dec. 31 and watch what happens when it rolls over to Jan. 1, said PBS's Beinhacker. Does it indicate 2000 and not 1900? Does it indicate Saturday, as it should? Then check Feb. 28, 2000, since next year is a leap year. Does it correctly roll over to Feb. 29 and then to March 1?

    Tests should be done offline, isolating the system from having effects on the real world, said Bloss. And stations should keep backup copies of their data and software in case they're damaged in the tests.

    Faced with an inventory of 7,000 different audio production devices, NPR prioritized its testing to concentrate on 200 that were most critical, said NPR engineer Jan Andrews. The technicians aim to complete testing those this month.

    If a software program uses data from another program, you should test their interoperability. One vendor's Y2K fix may work for its own software but may not fix the data that it passes on to another program.

  • Fix or replace noncompliant software and equipment.

    At WQED in Pittsburgh, Y2K has prompted major updates of software in recent years, said Kate St. John, director of information technology. The station replaced its accounting, membership, e-mail and other systems.

    NPR also moved to a new Y2K-compliant finance software package, and switched to the AP Electronic News Production System, replacing a text system that ran on a noncompliant VAX minicomputer, said Shwetz.

    One critical system, said McBride, is the Emergency Alert System (EAS) required by the FCC. If the health department suddenly finds that the water supply is contaminated and issues a "boil water" alert, people will get sick if they don't get the warning, she said. Fortunately, EAS equipment is relatively new, she noted, and broadcasters are paying attention to it.

    Some EAS equipment did have Y2K problems, even though the manufacturers had certified it compliant, said Bill Fawcett, director of engineering at WMRA, Harrisonburg, Va., but fixes have been devised. Software upgrades can be downloaded from vendor web sites.

  • Develop contingency plans for the most serious problems that may occur. In many cases, this means figuring out how to override automatic systems and do the task manually or with simpler technology. At KERA, Cheng said, the finance office is looking around for working typewriters and stocking up on blank checks and postage stamps.

    The plan may call for the same steps you'd take in a weather emergency. When a power outage hit Pittsburgh last summer, WQED had to call in its timesheets to the company that prints its payroll checks, said St. John. In January it will be ready with a faster emergency method using a computer, she said.

    PBS developed plans in two steps, said Beinhacker. First, planners in each unit figured out what to do in case of problems, such as local utility failure. Second, they took steps to make sure the contigency plans would go smoothly, if needed--getting signatures on purchase orders to alternative vendors, for instance.

    With broadcast equipment that you usually control through software, make sure that you know how to adjust it with manual switches, advised Fawcett. "That takes the computer out of the equation."

    To guard against power outages, NPR's Andrews suggests that stations buy backup generators if they don't have them already, and test them if they do. "Every time we test ours, we find problems we can't imagine we would have," he said.

    At PBS, many departments are avoiding crises in January by adjusting schedules--doing mailings early in December and avoiding delivery dates in late December or early January, said Beinhacker.

Preparing the contingency plans, said Ducey, will help managers discover problems in their information flow that they would never tolerate in their cash flow.

In Dallas, KERA's Chief Financial Officer Sam Cheng printed up t-shirts for departments that have achieved Y2K compliance--and those that have more work to do. (Photo courtesy of KERA.)

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