On July 11, 2014 The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has yet again expanded the types of video that broadcasters, cable and satellite channels must caption for the deaf and hearing impaired.
The FCC already requires that full-length programming that appears with closed-captioning on TV also include captioning when the video is posted online. Building on the closed captioning rules adopted in 2012, these new rules extend captioning to clips of that TV content such as online promotions and live or near-live breaking news and sports topics.
Citing the need for further accessibility, the agency’s chairman Tom Wheeler says the hearing impaired community “have been told they have to wait until technology catches up to them. ‘Waiting until they get around to it’ is no longer good enough.”
The broadcast industry had been pleading for more time citing technical challenges as well as rising costs and competition in the marketplace.
In a recent article by Samantha Bookman of FierceOnlineVideo, Dotsub Chief Revenue Officer Peter Crosby states that despite content providers’ concerns, putting captions into digital format has breathed new life into the market segment.
“(Captions are) at the mandate level, which has driven a lot of this. Netflix and Amazon Instant were under huge pressure to caption everything. What’s happened now is they have all made it to 100 percent and now found huge utility around captions,” relates Crosby.
See the full text of the article at: http://www.fierceonlinevideo.com/story/nab-ncta-want-more-time-caption-online-video-clips/2014-07-08
There are a series of deadlines between 2016 and 2017 for captioning the clips:
January 1, 2016 – for clips which contain a single excerpt of a captioned television program with the same video and audio that was presented on television
January 1, 2017 – for montages when a single file contains multiple straight lift clips
July 1, 2017 – for video clips of live and near-live television programming, such as news or sporting events. Distributors have 12 hours after the live video programming was shown on television and 8 hours after the associated near-live video programming was shown on television before the clip must be captioned.
Also in this ruling, the agency issued a Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that asks for comment on related issues.
For the full text of the FCC rulings:
http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2014/db0711/DOC-328173A1.pdf