Improving Closed Captioning
Closed captioning is an integral and crucial part of a deaf and hard of hearing person’s daily life and personal safety. However, despite the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) current closed captioning rules, there continues to be woeful – no access or poor quality – television closed captions.
In 2004, the NAD and other consumer advocacy groups filed a petition with the FCC seeking to improve the quality of television closed captioning.
In 2005, the FCC began a rulemaking process to examine the FCC closed captioning rules for television. The FCC sought and received comments on whether additional enforcement mechanisms should be required to ensure full compliance with the closed captioning rules. The FCC also sought comments on whether to increase the accountability for noncompliance with the closed captioning rules. The FCC also sought comments on the following areas:
- non-technical quality standards for closed captioning;
- technical quality standards for closed captioning;
- monitoring of captioning;
- complaint procedures;
- accessibility of contact information;
- standardized FCC complaint form for consumers to use;
- fines and penalties for failure to caption;
- requirement for compliance reports by broadcasters; and
- availability of captioners to provide live and pre-broadcast captions.
More than 1,600 comments about closed captioning were filed with the FCC, mostly by individual consumers.
In November 2008, the FCC issued a ruling that addressed some of our closed captioning issues and concerns.
Contact information: The FCC is requiring video programming distributors to provide two types of contact information for reporting closed captioning problems. First, video programming distributors must provide contact informatio