Commenters Agree School Closings Shouldn't Pre-empt Emergency Information
The FCC should modify emergency information rules to keep school closing announcements and other less important information from pre-empting critical emergency information on audible news crawls transmitted over secondary audio streams, said broadcasters, cable associations and consumer organizations in comments posted to docket 12-107 Monday. The comments were filed in response to a Further NPRM seeking comment on emergency information accessibility. Nearly all commenters agreed that such crawls should prioritize emergency information over closings. But cable groups and consumer groups disagreed on requiring multichannel video programming distributors to provide simple mechanisms for accessing secondary audio information
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The cable industry is working on providing similar means to access video description, carried on the same secondary audio stream as the emergency information, NCTA said. “There is no need for additional regulation in this area,” NCTA said. “The roll-out of audibly-accessible guides and menus will assist blind or visually impaired individuals in locating secondary audio streams that will contain emergency information as well as video description.” The American Cable Association and NCTA argued that the FCC doesn’t have authority to require pay-TV operators to create a mechanism for accessing the secondary audio stream. If the FCC does so, it should allow smaller cable companies more time to comply and study the burden such rules have on them, ACA said. NCTA said any such rule should be limited to requiring cable operators to provide such devices only to customers who request them.
An activation mechanism that is “simple and easy to use" is ”essential” for the safety of blind consumers, the National Federation of the Blind said. “It is not the complexity of technology that presents a barrier to access for the blind, but the indifference on the part of those who deploy technology,” the NFB said. “MVPDs should be required to deploy only that technology which is not only simple and easy to use, but also accessible by nonvisual means.”
Broadcasters should get to decide the priority of emergency information rather than the FCC regulating, Media General and NAB said. The FCC should allow broadcasters “to evaluate emergency situations in their local communities and provide the most relevant information to their viewers based on the circumstances in each case,” NAB said. “Technical limitations prevent broadcasters from simultaneously transmitting through audible crawls lengthy school closing announcements and other essential information for viewers affecting life, health, safety and property.” Though the NFB said it's important to prioritize emergency information over closings, it objected to removing that information from audible crawls entirely. “Information about school closings is important to any parent regardless of whether the parent is blind or sighted,” said Effective Altruism Policy Analytics. Its website said it's "an experimental policy project attempting to bring effective altruism ideas to public policy."