FCC proposes to require captions on all TV shows

FCC adopts timetable for mandatory captioning Originally published in Current, Aug. 25, 1997 Following through its January proposal, the FCC has set a schedule that phases-in mandatory closed-captioning of new TV programming. At its Aug. 7 meeting, the commission said it will put the responsibility on broadcasters, cable operators and other program distributors--not producers. Within eight years, they will have to caption 95 percent of their new programming (first aired Jan. 1, 1998 or later) during each calendar quarter. And within 10 years, they will have to caption 75 percent of older programs. For the new programming, the requirement phases-in gradually: 25 percent after two years, 50 percent after four years, 75 percent after six years and all new programming after eight. PBS's National Program Service is already fully captioned, according to Mary Watkins of the WGBH Caption Center. Many details of the ruling were not clear as of last week. The rules on exempt programming will be particularly interesting to pubcasters and others with limited budgets. The FCC said certain local programming would be exempt, as well as programming from providers that have annual gross revenues of less than $3 million. Providers will not have to spend more than 2 percent of their annual revenues on captioning. Providers will be able to petition for exemption if captioning would be an "undue burden." Also exempted: non-English-language programs, late-night programs, public service announcements and advertising spots. <*p(14)>

Originally published in Current, Jan. 20, 1997

By Steve Behrens

The FCC decided Jan. 9 [1997] to propose rules that would phase-in closed captioning of all broadcast and cable TV programming over the next eight years.

The proposal, an important one for hearing-impaired viewers, is "a natural follow-up" to the decoder circuitry law, effective in 1993, that required captioning circuitry in all TV sets, according to Larry Goldberg, director of media access at WGBH, Boston.

"Here we have the solving of the chicken-and-egg problem," he says. More than half of homes have TV sets that can display closed captions, thanks to the earlier law; now, the FCC addresses the supply of captions.

As a first step, the commission would require captioning of 25 percent of programming within two years. The requirement would rise in 25 percent increments every two years until all is captioned.

Few broadcasters would have trouble meeting those requirements, at least in the early years. More than three-fourths of commercial network programming is captioned, as well as nearly the whole PBS National Program Service, Goldberg estimates. Pay cable networks, likewise, are heavily captioned.

The gaps are on local broadcast stations and many ad-supported cable networks, he says.

America's Public Television Stations (APTS) will ask the FCC to give exceptions for low-budget public TV stations that cannot afford to add captioning to their production costs, says Lonna Thompson, APTS director of legal affairs. She fears the requirement might also discourage free program sharing among stations.

The FCC recognizes that problem, says Thompson. In its rulemaking, the commission said it will ask how to define cases where individual stations would be exempted from the rule because of undue economic burden.

The commission will also ask for comments on a provision requiring captions on old "library" programming on stations' shelves.

Detailed text of the rulemaking, 97-4, was not released immediately, but it soon may be posted on the FCC's web site.

The proposal is expected to move ahead, according to Goldberg. It was mandated by Congress in Section 305 of last winter's big Telecom Act and is not widely opposed by broadcasters.

 

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