FCC Draft Would Require Emergency Video Descriptions in 2 Years, and on Many CE Devices
Some newer video products would need to be capable of passing on to users video descriptions from TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors’ emergency on-screen crawls within two years of a draft FCC order taking effect, agency officials said. They said the draft Media Bureau order would require mobile DTV products and DVR and Blu-ray players to be able to pass on audio narratives of warnings originally rendered on the screens of TV station and MVPD programming viewers. The TV licensees would be responsible for converting what’s in the crawls into secondary audio programming channels, and the SAP content would need to be available to users of the consumer electronics, agency officials said. CEA, NAB and members have sought exclusions or more time for mobile DTV equipment (CD Feb 14 p18).
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The draft would require within two years of the document appearing in the Federal Register that all TV stations and MVPDs put, on their SAP channels, visual crawls now appearing on viewers’ screens that carry emergency information, FCC officials said. Such SAP information would then need to be passed onto users of a wide array of CE devices that are meant for individual subscriber and not commercial use, FCC officials told us. A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment.
The draft order contains a further rulemaking notice that tentatively finds such SAP apparatus rules should apply to tablets, smartphones and other video devices that carry MVPD content, commission officials said. Comcast and NCTA had asked the agency to not apply the rules to MVPDs’ Internet Protocol content. The order is expected to be adopted outside a monthly meeting by FCC members, and it combines two deadlines of emergency-accessibility statutes in the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, agency officials said. The CVAA requires the agency to issue rules on putting the same information contained in crawls in video descriptions -- aural renditions of what’s happening during a program that’s not contained in dialogue -- by April 9. The act requires apparatus rules by Oct. 9.
The draft order doesn’t exempt DBS providers, which have said they have capacity limits, or small cable operators, which also seek more lenient compliance rules or a phase-in period, FCC officials said.
Consideration of whether to change the draft before it’s approved, so capacity constraints of FCC licensees are recognized, is being given within the agency, commission and industry officials said. The American Cable Association, DirecTV and Dish Network lobbied for such leniency in ex parte meetings with agency officials last week (CD March 11 p20), filings in docket 12-107 show (http://bit.ly/12JbFHD).
Cable operators don’t want the rules to apply to MVPDs’ IP streams. There’s a “difference between Congress’ express intent in the CVAA to require the captioning of IP-delivered video programming and the Commission’s more limited mandate in this proceeding,” NCTA reported (http://bit.ly/W2wtWA) its executives told an aide to Commissioner Robert McDowell. “Congress directed the Commission to conduct a separate inquiry addressing ’the technical and operational issues, costs, and benefits of providing video descriptions for video programming that is delivered using Internet protocol’ one year after implementation of the video description rules.”