TDI Conference: TV Captioning Issues – Part 3
By Lise Hamlin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Editor: Here’s Lise Hamlin’s writeup of Cheryl Heppner’s workshop on
TV Captioning Issues. This workshop included a bunch of captioning
pros, including: Moderator: Cheryl Heppner, Executive Director, NVRC
– Rosaline Crawford, Director, Law & Advocacy Center, National
Association of the Deaf
– Greg Hlibok, Senior Attorney, Disability Rights Office, Federal
Communications Commission
– Michael Schooler, Deputy General Counsel, National Cable &
Telecommunications Association
– Heather York, Account Executive/Marketing Manager, VITAC
– Marsha McBride, Executive Vice President, Legal & Regulatory
Affairs, National Association of Broadcasters
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA)
Michael Schooler, vice president and deputy general counsel of the
National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) spoke next
about cable and satellite issues with closed captioning and how
they’re being resolved.
Michael reported he’d been with the cable industry for 25 years. He
noted that throughout those 25 years they have been prodded by
consumer organizations to do better in adapting technological
developments to meet the needs of the community. From his
perspective, there has been enormous progress during the last quarter
century so that now, as required by the FCC’s rule, virtually all
cable networks are captioned.
According to Michael, the problems are no longer that networks aren’t
captioned, rather that:
1) the quality of the captioning may not be perfect;
2) certain types of live and emergency programming can’t always be
captioned in the optimal and most useful way;
3) the equipment used to watch captioned programs on cable systems,
especially with digital boxes that are now being deployed, sometimes
makes it difficult to navigate to the captioning.
1) Quality in captioning. According to Michael, the quality issue is
largely an issue of accuracy, but includes issues of format,
misspelling, type fonts and the like. He indicated that cable
operator members of NCTA can’t do much about that because they
generally pass through whatever captioning is provided by the program
networks. However, program network members of NCTA do enter into
contracts that include quality and accuracy provisions, and do
monitor and review the performance of the captioning services that
they use. In addition, captioners compete with each other to perform
accurately and keep their clients. It was Michael’s contention, and
he asked to be corrected if he was wrong, that the accuracy problem
mostly
occurs with live programming.
2) Emergency captioning. With respect to live news and emergency
programming, Michael said he understood that information conveyed via
captioning does not always match what is being provided in the audio
content of the programming. He indicated that the provision of live
unscripted programming has often been most difficult and expensive to
ensure. For many systems, the costs of retaining a live captioner 24
hours a day to provide for the eventuality of remote or on the spot
news could be cost prohibitive and would make it impossible to have
such channels in some of the smaller systems around the country.
For now, for these purposes, cable systems will rely on the emergency
alert system for emergencies for those services. But, he said, his
organization understands the frustration of that and hopes that that
is a problem they can begin to solve at some point.
3) Equipment. NCTA is aware and sympathetic to the difficulties of
how to access closed captioning on our digital set top boxes. NCTA is
trying to play an education role with their companies, helping them to
train their customer service representatives and technicians to
explain to customers how to use the equipment and prodding them to
work with equipment suppliers to make their equipment easier to use
for closed captioning.
Finally, Michael says that the NCTA realizes that even in cases where
programming is captioned by the program network things can and do go
wrong. Something may be wrong at the network, something may be wrong
at the system, or something may be wrong in a particular customer’s
set top box or television equipment. In these cases, NCTA companies
want to remedy problems and would like their customer service
representatives to help find the source of the problem as quickly as
possible.
Michael believes the best way to make that happen is to encourage
viewers to let the cable system know about a problem as quickly as
possible. If consumers find there is a problem that’s not being
seriously addressed and dealt with, let us know about it at NCTA. He
concluded, “I want you to know that we as an industry do take these
issues seriously and we want to continue making progress to ensure
customer satisfaction for all of our customers.”
Federal Communication Commission (FCC)
Greg Hlibok, an attorney advisor from the Disability Rights Office
(DRO) of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), opened his
comments by saying the FCC appreciated TDI’s commitment and
dedication to the cause of captioning. Greg said, “TDI, NAD, and
other organizations keep the FCC is on their toes, making sure the
FCC pays attention to this issue.”
Digital TV
Greg focused first on the FCC’s efforts regarding the transition to
digital TV. Less than two years from now, by February 17th, 2009
there will be no transmission of analog signals to televisions in the
U.S. Congress required the changeover to digital television to free up
the airways for other purposes, primarily so that first responders
will be able to be able to better use the airwaves to communicate
during an emergency.
People who get their television signals using rabbit ears on top of
their TV’s or by antennas on top of their homes will go dark unless
they have their own set top converter box. Roughly 23 million
Americans still receive their TV signals through the air. The FCC has
created educational materials to help people with the transition which
Greg urged people to review.
(http://www.dtv.gov/
)
Caption Quality
Greg noted that all programs must be captioned with some exceptions.
He reiterated that there was a petition filed by TDI and others
asking the FCC to revisit the captioning rule, improving the
monitoring, the enforcement of quality and standard. Currently,
quality of captions is reported on annual basis, and he said more
could be done to monitor standards. He indicated that baseline
standards should be set, that whether penalties should be assessed
for lack of captioning should be looked at and ENR captioning should
be studied.
Captioning Undue Burden Exemptions
Greg noted that programmers have the option to choose from a list of
exemptions that are self-imposed to see which ones apply. If the
programmer believes the “undue burden” exemption applies, they must
file with the FCC. Greg noted that the definition of “undue burden”
is “difficulty to provide captioning.” It could be either financial
or lack of resources, but it is vague. Lawyers can’t agree what it
means.
Greg indicated that the FCC has 700 petitions that have been filed
and that are pending. The FCC has not taken action on those, but will
be taking action soon.
Complaint Process
The FCC formally receives many informal complaints about captioning
as well as many other types of complaints other than captioning
issues. The FCC is required to give a reply to complaints, and people
who file complaints want a resolution. The FCC is changing its
procedure so that every time they receive a complaint, and when the
complaint is closed, the FCC will notify the person who made the
complaint. That will be the procedure for the many, many, many
thousands of complaints the FCC receives, not just captioning.
Also, they are aware that the complaint process is very complicated.
Consumers must first contact the programmer. And the programmer is
responsible to reply within 45 days. And if they don’t get a
response, the consumer should contact the FCC. The FCC is trying to
streamline that process. They want to make the complaint process much
easier and get the contact information available, so that people will
be able to contact a broadcaster right away if the captions are
missing. FCC recognizes this issue, and is working on the issue of
getting contact information for the consumer and for broadcasters as
well, so consumers can have a way to contact the right people. The
FCC is encouraging a streamlined process for information and
resolution of complaints.
~~~~~
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Hearing Persons (NVRC), 3951 Pender Drive, Suite 130, Fairfax, VA
22030; www.nvrc.org. 703-352-9055 V, 703-352-9056 TTY, 703-352-9058
Fax. You do not need permission to share this information, but please
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