Now that Congress has mandated that stations provide audio descriptions for blind and sight-impaired viewers, broadcasters should stop fighting it. I get it. Nobody likes to be told what to do by the government. But this is an instance where broadcasters are being told to do something that they ought to have been doing anyway. So accept it and, in the great spirit and tradition of broadcasting, make the most of it.
JESSELL AT LARGE
Stations Should Embrace TV For The Blind
Let’s face it, the way broadcasters handled this whole business of video descriptions has not been pretty. They have been blind to how bad they have looked.
From the beginning more than a decade ago, they have opposed the government’s efforts to get them to air a few hours a week of described programming for the blind and the visually impaired. I remember when the tuxedoed leaders of the industry had to slink by a group of advocates for the blind on their way into their annual Service to America summit in Washington. Oh, the irony.
Ask any of the 20 million visually impaired individuals about how much descriptions can enhanced her enjoyment of TV. With the descriptions, squeezed in between the dialog, they can follow all of the action, know what the characters and setting look like and get all the jokes with visual elements. It’s a wonderful service, and costs relatively little to provide.
When the FCC first mandated described programming in 2000, the broadcasters persuaded a court that the FCC had overstepped its authority. That was a victory, I suppose. But, if it was, only the lawyers were cheering.
In 2010, Congress stepped in and codified the old FCC rules, effectively ending the long debate on the matter. The FCC’s job is to implement and enforce the law.
Come July 1, Big Four O&Os and affiliates in the top 25 markets have to air four hours a week of described primetime or children’s programming. For the most part, that entails making sure they can pass through the described programming from the networks, which, according to our story Wednesday, are dutifully lining up that programming.
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It’s a good mix of dramas and sitcoms, by the way. ABC says it will be describing six sitcoms this summer. That’s particularly good news for the blind. Described sitcoms are a rarity with Fox’s The Simpsons being one of the few exceptions to the rule.
Large cable systems and satellite operators also have to telecast four hours a week from the top five rated cable networks.
Now that the feds have spoken, and broadcasters have no choice but to air an abundance of described programming, they should convert the chore to an opportunity — to bank some goodwill, build audience and maybe recoup some of the costs of providing the service.
Here’s how.
Start by making a big deal out of July 1. Run some stories on your own air about the new described programming and pitch the story to the papers. Go out and speak to local community groups that work with the blind and get them to endorse the service and talk it up. Get some credit not only for the described shows you will run under the new regime, but also for those you have run over the years just for the heck of it.
You don’t have to mention the government mandate. Just let them think you are upping the number of described shows because great services like this are just something that broadcasters naturally do.
But if you do feel guilty for trumpeting a service that you had to be coerced into providing — and you should — go beyond what’s required. Pressure your network for more than four hours. Why not six, eight or 10? Describing a $2 million primetime show adds only a few thousand dollars to the final cost.
And if you happen to be outside the top 25 markets, make the hardware investment to receive and pass through the descriptions if you haven’t already done so and if it doesn’t put too much of a strain on your budget. The top 25 markets cover only half the country’s TV homes and, presumably, only half the visually impaired people.
Follow up with some PSAs to alert blind viewers to the service and show them how to tune into the audio channel with the descriptions — directly off the air or through the cable or satellite system. Finding the channel is challenging, according to my blind friends who have struggled with it. Often, cable CSRs have no idea what they are talking about. That, one would hope, will change after July 1.
Since it’s no longer paying lawyers to fight the description obligation, the NAB might be able to fund the PSAs. Perhaps the networks could persuade some of their talent to appear in them — pro bono publica, of course.
ABC stations have been broadcasting Ocean Mysteries with Jeff Corwin, part of the network’s three-hour weekly children’s educational programming block, with descriptions since last December. And Litton Entertainment, which produces the block, says that all three hours will be described by July 1.
To promote the shows and descriptions, Litton is producing a PSA with Jeff Corwin. The 30-second spot will appear within the block and Litton will also make it available to ABC stations so that they can use it at other times. Let’s hope they do.
Can you make money off of descriptions? Maybe. The blind will tend to watch described programming and tend to stick with networks that offer the most of it, although I can’t say the increased viewership will be enough to make the Nielsen needle move.
But how about sales promotions? Find some advertisers that want to be associated with good works in the community — hospitals and doctors come to mind — and get them to “sponsor” the descriptions.
I’ve noticed that opening graphic for The Daily Show on Comedy Central now carries the line: “HD brought to you by Kit Kat” with an image of the candy bar. Why not a brief slide with voiceover before every described program: “Video descriptions for the blind brought to you by [fill in the blank]?” Such an announcement will let blind viewers (excuse the oxymoron) know that there is a show coming up that they can fully enjoy.
You might also be able to find a sponsor for a Web page with an up-to-date schedule of described programming and information on how to access it. Yes, the blind can surf the Web using software that reads every word on the page. Just make sure that you put the link to the description page in a prominent place high on the home page.
Look, I get it. Nobody likes to be told what to do by the government. But this is an instance where broadcasters are being told to do something that they ought to have been doing anyway. So accept it and, in the great spirit and tradition of broadcasting, make the most of it.
Harry A. Jessell is editor of TVNewsCheck. He can be contacted at 973-701-1067 or [email protected]. You can read earlier columns here.
Comments (14)
Janet Frankston Lorin says:
June 15, 2012 at 3:45 pm
I don’t get it. I have a blind relative who laughs uncontrollably when I tell her about video descriptions for television shows. She makes the point that television without pictures is called radio. I think she’s right. It is political correctness gone wild!
Anthony Danna says:
June 15, 2012 at 3:54 pm
That’s what I was going to say: “We already have TV for the blind… It’s called radio!” This is just ridiculous. At the very least, I sincerely hope it’s like closed captioning that we don’t have to have on unless we want it. I certainly don’t want that crap interrupting my TV shows!
Monica Alba says:
June 15, 2012 at 4:09 pm
I totally agree with Bonefish and Dave!! And to add to this.. radio is ABSOLUTELY capable of adding written descriptions and words to songs that can run in the RDS and definately in HD radio, internet radio, and satellite radio. Are blind people more important than deaf people?? Because they could certainly add written words for radio. My point is that it is like Bonefish said… we’ve become WAY too politically correct with this stuff. I have a blind family member that has NO PROBLEM “watching the TV”. It’s almost more of a problem to have the lame descriptions running in the background. They get their announcers from NPR or from the “school of drone reading” and they lack any emotion or interest to their description. As TV faces more competition and is harder to generate revenue with, hitting stations with an additional cost to benefit very few “viewers” makes little to no sense. I’d like to know how much this actually costs when divided by the number of viewers who benefit. This is load of balony!!! And of course, this all comes at a time when the politicians and FCC are looking at robbing the frequencies from the broadcasters to sell for “IP bandwidth” (which, of course, goes from something free/advertiser supported to costing the user… then on top of that, it is only a matter of time until the bandwidth user is “charged by the kilobyte”). Seems to me the politicians are totally “on the take” for all of this. Crooks!!!
mike tomasino says:
June 15, 2012 at 5:10 pm
“It’s almost more of a problem to have the lame descriptions running in the background.”
My DVR has recorded the video descriptions SAP off of KCNC for CSI on two occasions, and I have to say they stink. I deleted them after I figured out I couldn’t turn it off because the descriptions were just that bad. If I was bind, I wouldn’t want them, and being sighted, I certainly wouldn’t want to watch TV with them if I had a blind friend. Serious waste of money and time!!!
Jose Lorenzo says:
June 15, 2012 at 5:25 pm
Talk about misinformed comments. These take the prize. Like closed captioning for the hearing impaired, these descriptions for the blind can be turned on or off. Of course the sighted don’t want to have the distraction of a vocal description of what they can see. But if they are done well, they can be a big help to the 20 million folks who are visually impaired. This has nothing to do with political correctness or radio vs. TV. This is an inexpensive solution that makes TV a lot more enjoyable for those whose sight has deteriorated from disease, or age related degeneration, or injury. Someone blind from birth may have learned how to compensate by simply carefully listening to the sounds of the TV show and the dialog. But for those whose visual impairment has come after a lifetime of seeing normally, this description service can be a real godsend. It’s about time broadcasters have been dragged kicking and screaming into compliance. It’s just a sorry situation that they didn’t provide this service without being compelled to do so.
mike tomasino says:
June 15, 2012 at 6:05 pm
“But if they are done well, they can be a big help to the 20 million folks who are visually impaired.” They aren’t done well, that’s the point. And, sure you are supposed to be able to turn them off, but on the two occasions I pointed out above I wasn’t able to turn them off. Technical difficulties at the station, or problems with my DVR , I don’t know. But, the fact is I’d rather not watch the episode than have to listen to the descriptions. Do you actually know a blind person who likes these things, or are you just blowing smoke?
Monica Alba says:
June 15, 2012 at 5:36 pm
The cost of narrative description is enormous. Only when I was with PBS did it come “cheap” since the government paid for it. And the current population of the U.S. is about 314M people. So this enormous expense is for 7% of the population. I’d rather see the spanish language stations forced to add english as their SAP. Often they have great movies (originally voiced in english), but english as the SAP isn’t available. Or how about taking the millions and millions of dollars to descriptive narrate and apply it towards ocular research.
Craig Davenport says:
June 15, 2012 at 5:53 pm
“Let’s see….what else can we put on the television channel to piss off more viewers to leave free OTA television?” Are the cable/satellite operaters doing likewise? This is what you get when you you have a member of the Commish’ PC all over himself, nanny-wipe every frickin’ dillwad’s heiney that thinks they have an idea that will stick to any wall that it’s thrown against and to top it off…you announced to the world that you could care less about TV and you don’t even own one. Get radio… Next, we’ll have to interface another channel to activate tactile pads so the blind can “read” the CC they can”t see… I’m waiting for a set that’s capable of determining if someone comes near the set, the set “senses” that the individual isn’t quite “IQ-Passive” enough to view the show and understand the context of what’s being broadcast and is able to “bitch-slap” the idiot into next week. Then I’ll get damp in the shorts just enough to wire that circuit in and send every Congress-twink thier own set tuned to PBS and “Sersame Street” – then sit back to see who survives. What should be scaring me now is what may be coming down the pipe…these clowns PROBABLY have some hair-brained quadrapalegic, in the wings, waiting for them to MANDATE some special circuit that will need brain-wave patterns to activate a box that will allow channel-surfing at the speed of a neuron. I’m willing to bet a few Congress-critters might not have enough of what it takes to operate the TV stuffed between their ears to make a night of it. We already have seen what Hollyweird has been able to produce…but I’m rambling now. TTFN…
spike spike says:
June 15, 2012 at 10:18 pm
While heading for fifty years at the same station (and enjoying it for the most part) I started in the broadcasting thing in 1950 at the age of 15 doing the AM radio disc-jockey thing with records that would break…then vinyl…33 1/3 rpm…THE 45 with the adaptor!!!!…FM nah, never work…wire to tape recorders…Langworth Records…little blue records…huge ET”s for the Cisco Kid episodes…so many memories and then a switch to analog televisione in 1955…b/w…mammoth mikes and cameras…hot lights…and as in radio, the AP/UPI machines with bells for “breaking news”…fall preview parties at local hotels bringing in network stars…great food and drink…three major networks back then…some color began to fade in…expense-paid trips to LA, NY and New Orleans to interview stars of those fall showsin the 80’s …such excitement before the satellite interviews killed the trips (bummer)…NAB HIGH STANDARDS OF BROADCAST (long gone) when the American flag could not be in commercials and words relating to “bulletin” or
“news flash” were forbidden and an FCC that really checked on stations decency in programming (ah…yeah!)…then color everywhere!…anchors…meteorologists took over from news and weather presenters…rapidly growing technology…cable and Carlen’s seven or eight or nine or ten dirty words that opened up a sewer for the nasty-minded to embrace and the rest is history as seen in so much of televison today. Oh, broadcasters of old, we sure had it great for many decades before PC took over and the First Amendment became the shield for putrid the programming on so much of our once-proud radio and television industry. The last few years have not been good to it in my view, which I highly value. And so it goes…………! I bet there are many out there in “radio and TV land” who share similar feelings and memories when “return with us now to those days of yesteryear…” and “Hereee’s Johnny” meant solid enterainment.
spike spike says:
June 15, 2012 at 10:53 pm
….”those THRILLING days of yesteryear”. sorry Ranger!
Eric McCaffery says:
June 17, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Harry, I’ll tell you what. I’ll support government-mandated video description for the blind as soon as every newspaper in the country (okay, in the top 25 markets) is required to publish a braille edition at least weekly.
Ridiculous, isn’t it? So what’s different about video description? That the public proverbially owns the airwaves, which without private capital and sweat equity would transmit nothing but air?
Life is unfair and the fact that blind people cannot “watch” television is the least of the problems and challenges they face. On the other side of the equation, American society is drowning in government’s attempts to legislate all unfairness and risk out of the human experience. It’s not just video description. It’s captioning on the Internet so that hearing-impaired individuals won’t have to watch already-captioned programming on a conventional television set, the CALM Act so people won’t have to suffer the unendurable annoyance of loud commercials, mandated children’s programming because the outstanding programs already available on PBS aren’t enough, applying laws against age and sex discrimination in a way that refuses to recognize that there’s a legitimate business reason — attracting a larger audience — for preferring young and attractive news anchors, even if that’s unfair to older and less attractive ones, and playgrounds without jungle gyms because accidents will inevitably happen and that’s unacceptable.
If video description is a public good, then the public — or private charities — should pay for it, rather than imposing the costs on private business because that’s politically easy. And you know something? If tax dollars have to pay for it, it won’t happen, because there are many more important things for us to do, including for the blind and others to whom life has dealt a harsh hand. I’m a reasonably charitable person, but if I get a solicitation from a group that wants to fund video description, I’ll toss it in the garbage, whereas if I get one to enable the recording of book titles for the blind that wouldn’t otherwise be commercial to market as audio books, I’ll probably write a check.
If video description is as valuable as you say, let’s see if it can meet the test of the marketplace — if it can attract proponents and donors to fund it, without Congress simply passing a law that has no political cost. And no political cost isn’t the same as no cost, however small the dollars involved; each one of these ever expanding mandates is yet another straw on the camel’s back (read: our economy), further slowing and maybe ultimately breaking it.
Ellen Samrock says:
June 17, 2012 at 11:50 pm
Good grief, what next\? How about a simplified description for those who can’t understand complex sentences or a color description for those who are color blind. Accommodating those with disabilities is taking on absurd and expensive proportions. And to urge broadcasters to bend over even further without sufficiently acknowledging what has already been done is disingenuous. There is no indication that adding descriptions is going to give us any more viewers, friends of broadcasters within the community or influence in government. The only thing bending over has done so far is invite government to ream us out of much needed spectrum.
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Regina Marie says:
July 9, 2018 at 1:47 am
Reading the comments section disappointed me so much. We are not talking millions of our dollars first of all. Audio description is not going to break the bank. It’s cost to a production is minimal. Secondly, I am blind myself and many blind people benefit from audio description even if all people do not. Those who were born blind or grow up blind may not need it but many more people are going blind now as adults and losing sight because of age related I conditions. These people benefit from the description. A person looking at the pictures cannot Credibly assess whether the descriptions are good because they do not know what blind people need to hear during a movie. Most descriptions I hear are very good and help immensely in understanding a show. It is not the same as radio because you know radio is different then television or you would just listen to your radio. Television stories dramas movies and sitcoms do not appear on the radio anymore. We’re not talking about appreciating music but actually participating in what everybody else has in society. It is not political correctness to ask for Equal access. These descriptions can be turned off if you don’t want to hear them. If they accidentally get recorded, you delete the recording. Other than that, it is simply going into the menus and turning them off. I hope none of you ever become disabled or ill. You may find that the accommodations you need are being denied because of people like yourself now. Most new movies now come with audio description we can hear on devices in the movie theater. Theaters like the music circus are also providing audio description. TV can’t do it as well without incurring expenses or breaking the economy. We don’t need braille newspapers because we read them on the computer or smart phones like you do with voice over options. We have screen readers that read our computers already. Until you walk in my shoes, it is not OK that you tell me what I need or should desire