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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES (AAPD) LENDS SUPPORT TO LANDMARK CAPTIONING QUALITY PETITION
September 8, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Andrew Imparato
Mariana V. Nork
(202) 457-0046Eight Years after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Gaps Remain in Analog and Digital Captioning
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 8, 2004 - The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) is lending its support to Telecommunications for the Deaf, Inc. (TDI) in its joint filing with other national organizations serving Deaf and hard of hearing Americans to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on television captioning quality issues.
“The FCC needs to make it fully clear that provision of inferior quality of captioning is discriminatory and exclusionary”, says Andrew J. Imparato, AAPD President and CEO. “The FCC must emphasize clearly that full access to television for all viewers is a top priority.”
AAPD joins a cadre of organizations serving Americans who are Deaf or hard of hearing, including the Association of Late-Deafened Adults (ALDA), Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network (DHHCAN), National Association of the Deaf (NAD) and Self-Help for the Hard of Hearing People (SHHH). These organizations have united with TDI, which filed a Petition for Rulemaking on July 23, 2004, asking that the FCC address long-standing quality issues in closed captioning of all broadcast, cable and satellite television programming for viewers who are Deaf, hard of hearing or late-deafened.
On the heels of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 was enacted fourteen years ago. This Act has inserted decoders into virtually every home in the country with TV sets 13" or larger. In addition, Section 713 of the Telecommunication Act of 1996 currently requires that 75% of all new programming be captioned, which will increase to 100% of all new analog and digital television programming in 2006.
Closed captioning is critical to Deaf and hard of hearing individuals, both for personal safety and education, and with respect to quality of life. Individuals who rely on closed captioning in order to have access to video programming continue to experience numerous problems with the captioning quality, which has resulted in a lack of access to video programming that is contrary to the mandates of the Telecommunications Act. The FCC's adoption of the captioning rules was the first step towards increasing the availability of captioned programming.
However, it has become clear that additional enforcement mechanisms are required in order to ensure full implementation of the rules and to increase accountability for noncompliance with the rules. In addition, measures are needed to ensure that the occurrence of technical problems is minimized and to ensure that technical problems that do occur are remedied efficiently and expeditiously. The FCC also must adopt quality of service standards in order to ensure that video programming is fully accessible to all viewers who rely on captioning.
"When the FCC implemented the original captioning regulations, the purpose was to get captions on the TV screen. We now ask that the FCC expand on its commitment to monitor and enforce acceptable quality TV captioning", says Claude Stout, TDI Executive Director. Stout adds, "We also ask that the FCC ensure timely communication and resolution on captioning issues occur by quickly working in concert with consumers, captioning providers, and program producers and distributors."
Adds Nancy Bloch, National Association of the Deaf CEO, “Captioning must be treated with the same respect as sound. A viewer who can hear would never accept spoken words that are regularly unintelligible or missing and sound that suddenly stops. Nor would their attempts to call and inform the station of a problem be treated as having no sense of urgency."
As part of the advocacy organizations' ongoing efforts to promote more consumer involvement with the FCC and other government agencies, AAPD encourages all television viewers who use closed captioning to share their own personal experiences with the FCC, and to file comments in support of this Petition with the FCC and ask them to improve captioning quality for all.
In all comments related to the Petition, please be sure to include this docket number: RM-11065 and mention the Captioning Petition filed on July 23, 2004. You may either email your comments or fax them to 1-866-418-0232. When citing problems with quality of a specific program, be sure to include the following information: program, date(s) and times, channel (use names not numbers.), and your city and state. Please email a copy of your comments to TDI or FAX 301-589-3797.
About AAPD – American Association of People with Disabilities is the largest national nonprofit cross-disability member organization in the United States, dedicated to ensuring economic self-sufficiency and political empowerment for the more than 56 million Americans with disabilities. It was founded in 1995 to help unite the diverse community of people with disabilities, including their family, friends and supporters, and to be a national voice for change in implementing the goals of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). AAPD works in coalition with other disability organizations for the full implementation and enforcement of disability nondiscrimination laws. For additional information and to learn about AAPD member benefits, visit the AAPD website.
About TDI – Also known as Telecommunications for the Deaf, Inc., TDI is a non-profit advocacy organization that promotes equal access to telecommunications and media for individuals who are deaf, late deafened, hard-of-hearing or deaf-blind. Since 1968, TDI has successfully advocated for federal legislation such as the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Television Decoder Circuitry Act, both of 1990, as well as other legislation and policies mandating greater access to wireless technology, captioning as well as other telecommunication and media technologies. Since its inception, TDI has been promoting access to 9-1-1 centers and other public safety answering points, and is now working to ensure full access to information during natural or manmade disasters and other types of emergencies. TDI publishes annually, a National Directory & Resource Guide, commonly known as The Blue Book, a popular resource book for people with hearing loss, as well as The GA-SK quarterly news magazine. For more information, go to Telecommunications for the Deaf, Inc. website.
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