The FCC released its tentative agenda for its April 23 open meeting. For TV broadcasters, that meeting will include consideration of the adoption of a rulemaking looking to broaden obligations for the audio description of television programming.
New Captioning Standards Coming Soon
In its continuing effort to assure that television programming is more accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing, last February the FCC ratcheted up the captioning requirements for video programming distributors (VPDs) and video programmers. And now, thanks to a low-key announcement in the Federal Register, we know when the last of the new requirements will kick in: March 16, 2015.
FCC Asks About Internet Video Captioning
Closed captioning of video programming repurposed to the Internet has been an obligation of television stations for over a year. Thus far, most stations have been able to comply with the requirements — as those requirements have applied only to full programs that were captioned when broadcast over the air, and then carried on the Internet, either in whole or in segments that comprise essentially all of the program. Now, the FCC is asking if any program excerpt should be captioned when transmitted over the Internet.
