A terrestrial digital television receiver includes a tuner, a demodulator, a demultiplexer, a decoder, and a controller. The tuner receives a terrestrial television signal having an emergency alert table which contains text representing an emergency alert message. The demodulator demodulates the television signal and the demultiplexer demultiplexes the emergency alert table from the demodulated signal. The decoder parses the text data representing the emergency alert message, and the controller control operation of a display device such that the emergency alert message is scrolled across a predetermined portion of a video screen.