TDI Conference: TV Captioning Issues – Part 1
By Lise Hamlin
One of the sessions that packed in the audience at the TDI Conference
in San Mateo was a panel discussion of TV captioning issues. Cheryl
Heppner moderated this discussion. She introduced the panel, then
launched into a description of the state of captioning for emergency
broadcasts.
Visual Information in Emergencies
Cheryl told us that in August of 2006, the FCC issued a clarification
that wasn’t clear to most consumers. That notice permitted captions to
be absent if critical information was visually provided some other way
and allowed TV stations to provide visual information some other way
if the failure was “reasonable” without defining “reasonable.”
Consumers viewed this “clarification” as rule change – but without a
public notice to allow consumers the opportunity to comment.
After consumers raised their concerns with the FCC, in December 29,
2006, there was a public notice to clarify the clarification notice
they had issued. This notice was an important advancement because for
the first time it provided the types of steps that could be taken by
stations to obtain closed captioning quickly that would be considered
reasonable.
Cheryl concluded her remarks with a discussion about some continuing
issues in getting visual information in emergencies:
1) The FCC has created a Catch 22: when you send a complaint to the
FCC about not having visual information in an emergency, you have to
tell them what information is missing. However, if consumers knew
that, we wouldn’t be complaining in the first place.
2) People who have submitted complaints find that they often have no
idea what happens to that complaint.
3) Broadcasters in the less populous areas are not required to
provide realtime captioning.
Caption Quality Petition
Cheryl introduced Rosaline Crawford, the director of the Law and
Advocacy Center for the National Association of the Deaf (NAD).
Rosaline was there to provide the consumer perspective on closed
captioning rule making.
Rosaline spoke first about a petition that was filed in 2004
requesting the Federal ommunications Commission (FCC) make changes to
the closed captioning rules. That petition was filed by TDI and joined
by the NAD, Hearing Loss Association of America, Association of
Late-Deafened Adults and the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer
Advocacy Network.
The petition was filed to:
1) establish additional enforcement mechanisms to ensure closed
captioning rules were implemented fully, to increase accountability
of distributors of programming, and to ensure that technical problems
identified would be rectified quickly; and
2) establish quality standards for captioning.
The petition gave the FCC a number of different recommendations:
* To have a database of video distributors contact information so
consumers could contact them directly when there was a problem.
* To create an easier way for consumers to file complaints with the
FCC.
* To require responses to complaints to be within 30 days
* To require programmers to continue reporting their level of
compliance.
* To require the FCC to provide compliance audits.
* To establish some penalties for noncompliance.
* To require continuous monitoring of captioning by programmers.
* To require distributors to reformat captioned programming that has
been edited or compressed.
* To extend the prohibition of counting as captions live programming
using the electronic news room (ENR) technique.
* To adopt some non-technical quality standards for captioning.
That petition was filed in 2004. The FCC issued a proposed rule
making process in 2005. The response and reply periods have ended.
Petitioners would like to see a response to that rule making request.
Exemptions from Closed Captioning: the Consumer Perspective
Rosaline noted that currently, 100% of all new English programming
(produced after 1998) that is not exempt should be captioned.
Automatic exemptions include: programming broadcast during late night
hours (2-6 am local time); primarily textual programs; musical
programs with no lyrics.
One special exemption is undue burden. To qualify for this exemption,
programmers must show the FCC that providing captions will be such a
significant difficulty and expense that they cannot do it. FCC
reviews these applications and they post them on public notice for
comment. After the comment period is completed, the FCC determines
whether the undue burden exemption applies.
During a six-year period from 1999 to 2005, a total of 67 programs
requested an exemption. Of those 67, the FCC denied 50 of them. And
it only granted three of them, and granted the exemption to those
three for only a short period of time.
By 2006, 100% of non-exempt programming is required to be captioned.
Suddenly, by August of 2006 there were 99 petitions posted on public
notice. In response, the FCC posted a decision on two petitions. One
of the programs was “Anglers for Christ.” The FCC granted these two
programs exemptions from ever being closed captioned. With this
action, the FCC granted permanent exemptions for the first time in
the history of TV captioning,
In addition to that, the FCC essentially created a new category. For
nonprofit organizations that do not get paid for producing their
programs and that claim that in order to provide captioning they may
have to reduce or stop their TV programming, or may have to take
resources away from other activities that are important to them, the
FCC would be inclined favorably to grant an exemption.
And then the FCC did just that. The agency granted over 200 programs
exemptions, without even making those petitions available for the
public to comment on them.
NAD, TDI, and others objected and requested a review and rescission
of that order. The consumer organizations let the FCC know that they
had not followed their own procedures. There was enough pressure put
on by people from Congress, and by hundreds and hundreds of consumers
who wrote in saying, “You’ve got to be kidding!” that the FCC decided
to suspend their decision. Then they posted for public notice 494
programs that requested exemption.
TDI, NAD, several other consumer organizations, volunteers, put in
hundreds of hours and read each one of these petitions, evaluate
them, write responses, and make recommendations as to what they
thought should happen with each and every single one of these 494
petitions. In 2007, there have been 100 more petitions posted and
answered by consumer organizations, who are waiting for the FCC to
actually decide on all these petitions.
Consumer organizations have reiterated again and again that they want
cancellation of that September 12th “Anglers” order that created that
new category of exempt programs. As Rosaline said, “Let’s go back to
the way the rules are. They are already there, let’s just follow the
rules as they’re written.”
~~~~~
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Hearing Persons (NVRC), 3951 Pender Drive, Suite 130, Fairfax, VA
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