A terrestrial digital television receiver includes a tuner, a microcomputer, and a demodulator. The microcomputer initially determines whether the DTV receiver is on, a power-on or power-off mode. If the DTV receiver is on the power-off mode, the microcomputer, control operation of the tuner to tune to a predefined emergency alert channel to receive a master guide table. The demodulator parses the master guide table. If the parsed master guide table indicates that a new emergency alert message is being received, the microcomputer automatically sets the DTV receiver on the power-on mode and controls operation of the tuner to tune to the emergency alert channel.