IP Clips Order Requires Live Online Clips to Be Captioned in 12 Hours
Friday’s FCC order requiring closed captions for online video clips will mandate live clips be captioned within 12 hours of appearing online and abide by quality standards, but defers captioning requirements for “advance” promotional clips and questions of responsibility for clips on third party websites to a further notice, said agency officials. Changes to the item were still being proposed (CD July 9 p3) late Thursday, and it was possible that it could shift before the open meeting Friday morning, one eighth-floor official told us.
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The item is expected to pass unanimously, but could receive one dissent from a Republican commissioner, an FCC official said. Chairman Tom Wheeler’s office was still contemplating requests for changes from commission offices Thursday evening, the official said. One of the requests was to change the items in the FNPRM from tentative conclusions to open questions, an FCC official said. The agency had no comment.
The 12-hour grace period is the shortest reasonable amount of time for broadcasters to caption a live clip, NAB has said. There had been a request from one eighth-floor office to also create a grace period for “near-live clips,” but the draft item contained language rejecting that proposal, an FCC official said. A grace period for near-live clips is contemplated in the FNPRM, the official said. The requirement to caption live clips will go into effect July 2017, the official said.
Other than advance and live clips, nearly all online clips that were previously aired on TV with captions and appear on video programming distributor owned websites will be required to have captions, said an FCC official. “Straight lift” online clips will have to be captioned by January 2016, while montages, where clips are cut together, have to be captioned by 2017, agency officials have said. Captioning for “mash-ups,” defined as clips that combine captioned clips with previously uncaptioned content, has been deferred to the FNPRM, they have said. Though industry commenters had pushed for a minimum length for clips that have to be commissioned, the draft order applies to clips of any length, said an FCC official. The rule also doesn’t apply to archived content that existed before the rule, said commission officials.
The order will require online clips to adhere to the same standards for accuracy, timing, legibility and completeness that clips for TV programs do, said an FCC official. That’s despite an industry push just before the sunshine period to have quality standards not apply to online clips (http://bit.ly/TR1b5q). The item doesn’t focus on enforcing violations of the captioning rules, said an FCC official. -- Monty Tayloe (mtayloe@warren-news.com)