Captioning Law
Television captioning has been in the news recently. Last week, we
published an article in our newsletter by the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) alerting
people to the possible restriction of the types of programming that the
Department of Education can caption. The very next day, the FCC advised us that
the Home Shopping Club is requesting an exemption from captioning requirements.
So I did a little homework on current captioning law, and here is what I
learned.
The major legal requirements for captioning are found in the Communications
Act of 1996 and amendments. The portions of the Communication Act that specify
captioning clearly define what the captioning requirements are. There is an
8-year phase in for programming produced since Jan 1, 1998, and a 10-year phase
in for programming produced before that. Jan 1, 2000 is the only milestone that
has been reached so far, and it requires that 25% of new programming be
captioned. (Did you think it was serendipity that the Weather Channel recently
started captioning?) So according to the law, every station is responsible to
ensure that at least 25% of the programming they show that has been produced
since Jan 1, 1998 is captioned.
Are they doing it? Don't know. Do you? And neither does the FCC, who is
supposed to be enforcing that law. There are no requirements for documenting
compliance, so the only way anyone can determine whether a station is in
compliance is by manually recording and tabulating the shows that are and are
not captioned. Sounds like a lot of work, right?? But the good news is that you
only have to do it for 3 months, because that's the period over which the law
states that the 25% rule applies.
So, suppose you diligently record and tabulate the captioned programming for
a particular station for three months (If you have a lot of time, you might do
two stations), and you determine that they are in violation. You go running to
the FCC to report it, right? You can, but they'll just tell you that you have to
first try to work it out with the station. (Work what out?? They broke the law,
now punish them.) So, you dutifully report it to the station. They have 45 days
to reply to you, then if you and the station can't work it out (work what out?)
in 30 days, THEN you can report it to the FCC.
And what does the FCC do? They, in theory, will try to determine whether the
station is in compliance over some future 90-day period, not the 90-day period
you complained about. And if the station is in compliance over that 90-day
period, there's no crime and no penalty. And if they're not in compliance over
that 90-day period, the FCC will punish them as they see fit, including
(possibly) forcing them to comply with the law over the next 90 days.
Don't like the punishment? Don't think it's harsh enough? You can sue the
station, right? Wrong, the FCC has complete authority over these matters. You
can't sue the station. OK, so you can sue the FCC, because they're in cahoots
with the corporate media, right? Sorry, wrong again.
Oh, by the way, one other rule that became effective Jan 1, 2000 is that the
use of "canned" captioning to do the news by the major networks is
prohibited in the 25 largest markets. This means that the captioning can't be
done beforehand from a script, but must be done "live", so that it
gets all the adlibs, breaking news, weather, etc. Did anyone in one of these
large markets notice that this happened?
OK, suppose a station is providing the necessary quantity of captioning, but
the quality is so bad that it is virtually unusable. You can complain about
that, right? Well, I suppose you can go through that whole procedure if you
want, but it won't do any good. There are no requirements on captioning quality,
nor are there any requirements on the captionists (no requirement that they are
certified, passed a test, can read and write, etc). Stations are compliant as
long as there is SOMETHING on the screen where English text is supposed to be.
BTW, I haven't even gotten into the exemptions that are provided, but there
are way too many. The FCC Order that states the rules consists of the following:
Introduction............................2 pages
Discussion of the law .................14 pages
Responsibility for Compliance .........36 pages
Measuring Compliance ..................20 pages
Exemptions ...........................130 pages !!!!!!!!!!
OK so that's the law that's FORCING (?) TV stations to provide captioning. Is
it any wonder that some stations seem to be ignoring it? As to what we can do
about it, I think we must oppose any action that attempts to reduce the amount
or the diversity of the captioning available.
Many of you have already responded to the Department of Education regarding
the pending restrictions on the types of programming they can caption. Thanks to
all of you who followed through with that. For those who would like contact
information, see last week's newsletter.
Regarding the Home Shopping Club's request for waiver from the law, I
encourage the FCC to reply, "Absolutely not". For additional
information on this situation or to comment on this issue, visit http://www.fcc.gov/dtf.
