FCC Releases Order on Caption Quality

By: David Titmus
Filters

Popular posts

Cell phone laying on a desk near a computer keyboard with the Twitch logo displayed on the phone screen
How to Add Captions to Twitch How to Add Captions to Twitch
lamp on desk
So You Want to Be a VITAC Realtime Captioner… So You Want to Be a VITAC Realtime Captioner…

Related posts

Wide angle of the 2022 M-Enabling Summit conference. people are sitting at tables and listening to a man speak at the front stage
VITAC Among the Panelists at 2023 M-Enabling Summit VITAC Among the Panelists at 2023 M-Enabling Summit
Gal Stern stands in front of the VITAC booth at IBC. The booth has the words 'the global leader in access services, transcription, and localization
Localization, Artificial Intelligence, and Inclusion: Takeaways from IBC 2023 Localization, Artificial Intelligence, and Inclusion: Takeaways from IBC 2023
Share
Copied!

On February 20, 2014, the FCC announced the most dramatic changes to caption standards since the CVAA passed in 2010. The Report and Order, released on February 24th, comes ten years after the issue of caption quality was raised by Telecommunications for the Deaf, Inc, and mandates specific practices for program providers, distributors, caption companies and captioners.   VITAC representatives Heather York, VP Marketing, and Amy Bowlen, Manager of Realtime Training, took an active role in collaborating with industry representatives and establishing which proposed modifications were most urgent.

Below are some of the most notable best practices established in this meeting:

-To be accurate, captions must reflect not only the dialogue, but also sounds and music to the fullest extent possible. Accurate captions must also identify the speaker.

-Captions may not cover significant on-screen images, including important graphics and character faces.

-All new on-demand programming must be captioned, whether English, Spanish, or bilingual.

-Offline programming must be programmed offline (as opposed to live or live-to-tape), except in cases of last-minute editorial changes to the program, proprietary considerations of the program’s content, or a damaged caption file.

-All new English-Spanish bilingual programming must be captioned. 75% of such captioning that existed before the ruling must be captioned by a date to be determined by the FCC.

Going forward, the FCC also hopes to address captioning requirements for online clips and whether or not to publicly post captioning complaints from consumers. Download the full report and order here.