Programmers, Hard of Hearing Community, Others, Await FCC Proceeding on Quality Rules for Captions
Industry and consumer groups lobbied the FCC on closed captioning quality, as the agency prepares at Thursday’s commissioner meeting to take up an FNPRM, order and declaratory ruling focusing on the quality and technical compliance of captioning (CD Feb 7 p8). Some had said they didn’t expect major changes to the draft rules, while others said they're uncertain about the exact approach the agency will end up taking. The order will broadly require TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors to have high-quality captions on all captioned programming, and will defer the question of quantitative standards for measuring compliance to the FNPRM, industry and agency officials have said.
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Consumer groups representing the deaf and hard of hearing community urged the FCC to act swiftly to ensure the video programmers are responsible and accountable for meeting the quality standards set forth in the item (http://bit.ly/1jRhU3O). “We continue to have very high expectations for the impact of the order on the deaf and hard of hearing community,” said Blake Reid, assistant clinical professor of the University of Colorado’s Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic, which represents Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired. “This will facilitate much higher quality captions in the short term and provide a foundation for the commission to address the quality of captions in a more comprehensive way long term,” he said in an interview.
DirecTV urged the FCC to determine the proper apportionment of liability for the quality of closed captioning. Where a problem with captioning quality arises on the programmer’s end, “a regime that places liability solely on distributors may be able to recover a monetary fine but will not address and rectify the underlying failure of captioning,” it said in an ex parte in docket 05-231 (http://bit.ly/1mtQqDo). If the goal is to ensure high quality closed captioning, it’s better and more efficient “to impose liability directly on the party responsible for a problem rather than needlessly insert an intermediary,” it said.
Comcast cautioned that it wouldn’t be effective or fair to put the burden on video programming distributors for caption quality issues that are determined to be outside their control. It also urged the FCC “to refrain from adopting overly prescriptive requirements in its pass-through rules,” it said in an ex parte (http://bit.ly/1nOmr48). Comcast stressed the importance of finalizing the compliance process “prior to the effective date of the substantive caption quality rules.” Comcast also said it’s working toward an automated monitoring process to ensure that caption streams are being passed through.
NCTA cautioned against the FCC’s imposing “burdensome monitoring, recordkeeping and reporting requirements,” it said in an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1fhrjxY). The commission should maintain a flexible approach “that would recognize the various ways in which cable operators monitor and maintain their equipment,” NCTA said. Charter also opposed any overly prescriptive maintenance, monitoring or record-keeping requirements. It supports the proposals of DirecTV, Dish Network and Comcast-NBCUniversal on enforcement of the FCC’s quality standards for closed captioning on video programming owners, it said (http://bit.ly/1hw0SYJ). It urged the FCC to act on an expedited basis to ensure that an enforcement regime that covers both video programming owners and providers becomes effective at the same time, it said.