FCC Gearing Up Work on IP Captioning Order Accounting for Industry Concerns

Work by staffers in the Media Bureau and Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau are taking these and other concerns into account, agency and industry officials said. Filings in docket 11-154 from groups advocating for those with problems hearing and for broadcasters, makers of consumer electronics, multichannel video programming distributors and their programming suppliers point up the array of issues facing FCC staffers, an agency official noted. Wireless carriers, CE makers, MVPDs, broadcasters and advocates for the deaf and hard of hearing had sought changes from what the commission proposed in a September rulemaking notice (CD Oct 20 p4). Spokeswomen for the bureaus declined to comment.

After the Media Bureau finishes work on another forthcoming order to implement the CALM Act (CD Nov 10 p5), with a Dec. 15 statutory deadline, the bureau will more heavily turn its sights to the IP captioning order, industry and agency officials predicted. The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act mandated the FCC set IP captioning rules, and the Video Programming Accessibility Advisory Committee came up with recommendations over the summer that informed the September notice (http://xrl.us/bmdypz). The notice surprised some by going beyond the recommendations of the VPAAC in proposing to hold both distributors and programmers responsible for captions, industry executives said. CEA, MPAA, NAB and NCTA spokesmen had no comment.

The Media Bureau appears to be grappling with how to walk back some from the proposals in the rulemaking notice without retreating from it entirely, said industry executives. They predicted staff ultimately will decide to give originators more of a role in IP captioning than was proposed in the notice, with distributors perhaps having a lesser role. “We propose to require VPOs to send program files to VPDs/VPPs with all required captions,” the notice said of video programming providers, which it called similar to VPDs. “As contemplated by Section 202(b)” of last year’s legislation, the notice proposed “to require VPDs/VPPs to enable ’the rendering or pass through’ of all required captions to the end user."

MPAA and many advocates for the deaf and hard of hearing have allied to say the FCC should stick with its current TV captioning rules in the IP world, and not require programmers to have a role (http://xrl.us/bmjaha). Some distributors have asked the commission to give them a more limited role. The American Cable Association, MPAA and HDMI Licensing LLC, proponent of the HDMI standard, each reported in the docket (http://xrl.us/bmjahn) as having lobbied the commission last week.

FCC staff seem inclined to give both distributors and originators some responsibility for IP captions, said Telecom for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Executive Director Claude Stout, citing a Nov. 8 meeting with staffers (http://xrl.us/bmimiw). “I think they're wanting the burden to be on all parties involved -- that way, no one will be off the hook,” Stout said. TDI and other advocates for those with hearing problems want it to be easy for consumers to file complaints when programming’s not captioned, regardless of whether VPDs or VPOs are ultimately held responsible, Stout said. “We prefer them to pick one -- that would be VPD,” he said. “We can understand why it’s not that easy, like it [is for] TV,” and so “they'll have to make complaint procedures very simple,” he continued. “Because we don’t want to be figuring out who’s the owner, who’s the distributor. When we file the complaint, we'll mention the problem, then somehow the FCC will do the rest of the work. They'll figure out who’s responsible for which program on the Internet."

MPAA has “serious concerns regarding the constitutional implications raised by the closed captioning rules proposed” by the agency, the group said in a filing posted to the docket Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bmjaiu). “Closed captioning regulations affect speech and therefore warrant heightened constitutional scrutiny,” it said. “For the first time, in a major shift from the existing captioning regime, the Commission would impose burdens on program owners and creators when they do not directly present content to consumers. A government mandate that these speakers include captioning on television programs that appear on the Internet would compel a speaker to speak in a manner not of its own choosing.” An MPAA executive and lawyers for the group met with front-office staffers in the media and consumer bureaus and FCC Office of General Counsel.

Some cable operators want the forthcoming rules to only apply to VPDs and VPPs that distribute video online using IP. “Allowing MVPDs who offer MVPD services using IP distribution over managed networks to remain subject solely to the existing rules will not result in any video programming exhibited or shown on television being delivered via IP without captions,” ACA said. “The Commission should exclude from CVAA IP captioning obligations broadband Internet access service providers.” A filing posted in the docket Tuesday reported on a meeting with the front office of the Consumer and Media Bureaus(http://xrl.us/bmjan2).

"In today’s digital world, closed captions generally are decoded by source devices,” HDMI Licensing said (http://xrl.us/bmjajx): “Understandably, consumers sometimes are confused regarding how to enable captions because of the many sources of video in their home and the wide variation in captioning implementation style and quality.” Executives of Panasonic and Philips and HDMI Licensing President Steve Venuti participated in a Nov. 15 meeting with both bureaus and the Office of Engineering and Technology. “Of the range of actions the Commission could take to address consumer concerns, mandating that the HDMI interface allow for the passing of closed captioning data is the most costly and most impractical. Such a mandate would require a change to the HDMI specification as well as hardware and software changes to video source and display devices.” The FCC should ask the VPACC to consider “whether industry-developed protocols can permit consumers to better activate captioning functionality,” said HDMI Licensing. It noted that other CE companies which developed the standard include Hitachi, Sony and Toshiba.