TDI Conference: TV Captioning Issues – Part 3<\/p>\n
By Lise Hamlin <\/p>\n
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ <\/p>\n
Editor: Here’s Lise Hamlin’s writeup of Cheryl Heppner’s workshop on
\nTV Captioning Issues. This workshop included a bunch of captioning
\npros, including: Moderator: Cheryl Heppner, Executive Director, NVRC <\/p>\n
– Rosaline Crawford, Director, Law & Advocacy Center, National
\nAssociation of the Deaf <\/p>\n
– Greg Hlibok, Senior Attorney, Disability Rights Office, Federal
\nCommunications Commission <\/p>\n
– Michael Schooler, Deputy General Counsel, National Cable &
\nTelecommunications Association <\/p>\n
– Heather York, Account Executive\/Marketing Manager, VITAC <\/p>\n
– Marsha McBride, Executive Vice President, Legal & Regulatory
\nAffairs, National Association of Broadcasters <\/p>\n
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ <\/p>\n
National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) <\/p>\n
Michael Schooler, vice president and deputy general counsel of the
\nNational Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) spoke next
\nabout cable and satellite issues with closed captioning and how
\nthey’re being resolved. <\/p>\n
Michael reported he’d been with the cable industry for 25 years. He
\nnoted that throughout those 25 years they have been prodded by
\nconsumer organizations to do better in adapting technological
\ndevelopments to meet the needs of the community. From his
\nperspective, there has been enormous progress during the last quarter
\ncentury so that now, as required by the FCC’s rule, virtually all
\ncable networks are captioned. <\/p>\n
According to Michael, the problems are no longer that networks aren’t
\ncaptioned, rather that: <\/p>\n
1) the quality of the captioning may not be perfect; <\/p>\n
2) certain types of live and emergency programming can’t always be
\ncaptioned in the optimal and most useful way; <\/p>\n
3) the equipment used to watch captioned programs on cable systems,
\nespecially with digital boxes that are now being deployed, sometimes
\nmakes it difficult to navigate to the captioning. <\/p>\n
1) Quality in captioning. According to Michael, the quality issue is
\nlargely an issue of accuracy, but includes issues of format,
\nmisspelling, type fonts and the like. He indicated that cable
\noperator members of NCTA can’t do much about that because they
\ngenerally pass through whatever captioning is provided by the program
\nnetworks. However, program network members of NCTA do enter into
\ncontracts that include quality and accuracy provisions, and do
\nmonitor and review the performance of the captioning services that
\nthey use. In addition, captioners compete with each other to perform
\naccurately and keep their clients. It was Michael’s contention, and
\nhe asked to be corrected if he was wrong, that the accuracy problem
\nmostly <\/p>\n
occurs with live programming. <\/p>\n
2) Emergency captioning. With respect to live news and emergency
\nprogramming, Michael said he understood that information conveyed via
\ncaptioning does not always match what is being provided in the audio
\ncontent of the programming. He indicated that the provision of live
\nunscripted programming has often been most difficult and expensive to
\nensure. For many systems, the costs of retaining a live captioner 24
\nhours a day to provide for the eventuality of remote or on the spot
\nnews could be cost prohibitive and would make it impossible to have
\nsuch channels in some of the smaller systems around the country. <\/p>\n
For now, for these purposes, cable systems will rely on the emergency
\nalert system for emergencies for those services. But, he said, his
\norganization understands the frustration of that and hopes that that
\nis a problem they can begin to solve at some point. <\/p>\n
3) Equipment. NCTA is aware and sympathetic to the difficulties of
\nhow to access closed captioning on our digital set top boxes. NCTA is
\ntrying to play an education role with their companies, helping them to
\ntrain their customer service representatives and technicians to
\nexplain to customers how to use the equipment and prodding them to
\nwork with equipment suppliers to make their equipment easier to use
\nfor closed captioning. <\/p>\n
Finally, Michael says that the NCTA realizes that even in cases where
\nprogramming is captioned by the program network things can and do go
\nwrong. Something may be wrong at the network, something may be wrong
\nat the system, or something may be wrong in a particular customer’s
\nset top box or television equipment. In these cases, NCTA companies
\nwant to remedy problems and would like their customer service
\nrepresentatives to help find the source of the problem as quickly as
\npossible. <\/p>\n
Michael believes the best way to make that happen is to encourage
\nviewers to let the cable system know about a problem as quickly as
\npossible. If consumers find there is a problem that’s not being
\nseriously addressed and dealt with, let us know about it at NCTA. He
\nconcluded, “I want you to know that we as an industry do take these
\nissues seriously and we want to continue making progress to ensure
\ncustomer satisfaction for all of our customers.” <\/p>\n
Federal Communication Commission (FCC) <\/p>\n
Greg Hlibok, an attorney advisor from the Disability Rights Office
\n(DRO) of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), opened his
\ncomments by saying the FCC appreciated TDI’s commitment and
\ndedication to the cause of captioning. Greg said, “TDI, NAD, and
\nother organizations keep the FCC is on their toes, making sure the
\nFCC pays attention to this issue.” <\/p>\n
Digital TV <\/p>\n
Greg focused first on the FCC’s efforts regarding the transition to
\ndigital TV. Less than two years from now, by February 17th, 2009
\nthere will be no transmission of analog signals to televisions in the
\nU.S. Congress required the changeover to digital television to free up
\nthe airways for other purposes, primarily so that first responders
\nwill be able to be able to better use the airwaves to communicate
\nduring an emergency. <\/p>\n
People who get their television signals using rabbit ears on top of
\ntheir TV’s or by antennas on top of their homes will go dark unless
\nthey have their own set top converter box. Roughly 23 million
\nAmericans still receive their TV signals through the air. The FCC has
\ncreated educational materials to help people with the transition which
\nGreg urged people to review. <\/p>\n
(http:\/\/www.dtv.gov\/
\n) <\/p>\n
Caption Quality <\/p>\n
Greg noted that all programs must be captioned with some exceptions.
\nHe reiterated that there was a petition filed by TDI and others
\nasking the FCC to revisit the captioning rule, improving the
\nmonitoring, the enforcement of quality and standard. Currently,
\nquality of captions is reported on annual basis, and he said more
\ncould be done to monitor standards. He indicated that baseline
\nstandards should be set, that whether penalties should be assessed
\nfor lack of captioning should be looked at and ENR captioning should
\nbe studied. <\/p>\n
Captioning Undue Burden Exemptions <\/p>\n
Greg noted that programmers have the option to choose from a list of
\nexemptions that are self-imposed to see which ones apply. If the
\nprogrammer believes the “undue burden” exemption applies, they must
\nfile with the FCC. Greg noted that the definition of “undue burden”
\nis “difficulty to provide captioning.” It could be either financial
\nor lack of resources, but it is vague. Lawyers can’t agree what it
\nmeans. <\/p>\n
Greg indicated that the FCC has 700 petitions that have been filed
\nand that are pending. The FCC has not taken action on those, but will
\nbe taking action soon. <\/p>\n
Complaint Process <\/p>\n
The FCC formally receives many informal complaints about captioning
\nas well as many other types of complaints other than captioning
\nissues. The FCC is required to give a reply to complaints, and people
\nwho file complaints want a resolution. The FCC is changing its
\nprocedure so that every time they receive a complaint, and when the
\ncomplaint is closed, the FCC will notify the person who made the
\ncomplaint. That will be the procedure for the many, many, many
\nthousands of complaints the FCC receives, not just captioning. <\/p>\n
Also, they are aware that the complaint process is very complicated.
\nConsumers must first contact the programmer. And the programmer is
\nresponsible to reply within 45 days. And if they don’t get a
\nresponse, the consumer should contact the FCC. The FCC is trying to
\nstreamline that process. They want to make the complaint process much
\neasier and get the contact information available, so that people will
\nbe able to contact a broadcaster right away if the captions are
\nmissing. FCC recognizes this issue, and is working on the issue of
\ngetting contact information for the consumer and for broadcasters as
\nwell, so consumers can have a way to contact the right people. The
\nFCC is encouraging a streamlined process for information and
\nresolution of complaints. <\/p>\n
~~~~~ <\/p>\n
(c)2007 by Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and Hard of
\nHearing Persons (NVRC), 3951 Pender Drive, Suite 130, Fairfax, VA
\n22030; www.nvrc.org. 703-352-9055 V, 703-352-9056 TTY, 703-352-9058
\nFax. You do not need permission to share this information, but please
\nbe sure to credit NVRC.<\/p>\n
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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…<\/p>\n