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FCC Reminds Video Programming Distributors of the Need to Make Details Regarding Emergency Information Available to Persons with Hearing or Vision Disabilities
July 24, 2006
The FCC has again issued a reminder to video programming distributors ("VPDs"), including broadcasters, cable operators, and satellite television services, of their obligation to make critical details relating to emergency information available to both hearing and visually impaired persons. Significantly, the public notice provides new information concerning the impact of the recent 100% closed captioning benchmark as it relates to such obligations.
Beginning January 1, 2006, VPDs were required to caption 100% of all new non-exempt programming. In light of the transition, entities that are not permitted by the FCC's rules to rely on the electronic newsroom technique ("ENT") for purposes of determining compliance with closed captioning requirements must provide closed captioning of critical details concerning emergency information.1 Previously, textual displays such as scrolls or crawls were considered permissible forms of visual presentation for compliance purposes. With the imposition of the 100% benchmark, however, only entities that are permitted to use ENT and that do use ENT to satisfy closed captioning requirements with respect to their live, scripted programming are permitted to rely on scrolls or crawls to caption non-scripted emergency information. With respect to entities that are permitted to use ENT but do not do so, scrolls or crawls are no longer sufficient, and critical details of emergency information must be closed captioned.
We would be pleased to respond to any questions regarding these matters.
1 Entities that are not allowed to use ENT to determine compliance with the closed captioning rules include: the major national broadcast television networks (i.e., ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC), affiliates of those networks in the top 25 Nielsen television markets, and national nonbroadcast networks serving at least 50% of all homes subscribing to multi channel video programming services. FCC rules permit the use of open captioning or subtitles in the language of the target audience in lieu of closed captioning.