TV Closed Captioning Requirements Increase January 1

From: NVRC.org - 20 Dec 2002

The Federal Communications Commission's Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau released a public notice on December 9, 2002 as to remind TV program distributors that after January 1, 2003 the regulations for captioning call for an increase to 30% for "pre-rule nonexempt video programming." That means that 30% of channels or programs not exempt from the regulations have to be closed captioned each calendar quarter, This applies to both analog pre-rule video programming (i.e., video programming that was first published or exhibited before January 1, 1998), and digital pre-rule video programming. Digital pre-rule programming is video programming prepared or formatted for display that was first published or exhibited before July 1, 2002. Beginning January 1, 2008, 75% of all pre-rule nonexempt programming must be captioned. These benchmarks ensure that video programming is accessible to persons who are deaf or hard of hearing in accordance with the mandate of Congress as set forth in Section 305 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

This public notice can be viewed in its entirety at http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/headlines.html , along with the associated footnotes.

If you do not have access to the Internet and want the Public Notice e-mailed, or in any other format, please send that specific request to fccinfo@fcc.gov