MPAA, NAB and NCTA asked FCC to stay rules for video descriptions...
MPAA, NAB and NCTA asked FCC to stay rules for video descriptions for blind. They said in filing that Commission should stay rules, scheduled to take effect April 1, until U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., ruled on their petition seeking…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
to overturn them. Oral argument in that case is set for Sept. 6, and decision is expected in late 2002 or early 2003. Rules would require major broadcast and cable networks to add video descriptions to 50 hours of prime-time or children’s programming per quarter, starting April 1. In video description, narrator describes action and environmental aspects of program during pauses in dialog, and those descriptions are broadcast over Secondary Audio Programming channel. Hollywood groups said FCC should grant stay because their court case was “likely to succeed on the merits” and because “the Commission clearly lacks statutory authority to adopt video description rules.” Groups said Communications Act empowered FCC to adopt only closed- captioning rules, and video description rules impinged on First Amendment. Groups said if rules went into effect they would have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for equipment and programming costs to abide by rules that they said were likely to be overturned by court, and that complying would mean interference with Spanish language audio. American Council of the Blind (ACB) “categorically condemned” entertainment industry trade associations for their filing and asked them to “stop this senseless attack on the need and right of blind people to know what is going on during TV and movie presentations.” ACB said it believed “vast majority” of individual members of those Hollywood trade assns. agreed with ACB. Earlier this week, FCC reminded TV, movie and cable industries of upcoming deadline.