Draft NPRM Will Seek Comment on Expanding Video Description
A draft NPRM slated for the FCC's March 31 meeting would seek comment on expanding the amount of described video available to consumers who are visually impaired, industry officials told us. The proposal is based on portions of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) that give the FCC authority to make such an expansion after June 2016, an industry official said.
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The FCC Disability Advisory Committee approved a set of recommendations for an NPRM on expanding video description in February. Described video content is very popular among the blind, and the system received a jolt of publicity last year through NBCUniversal's broadcast of The Wiz Live! with video description (see 1512010056), said American Foundation for the Blind Director of Public Policy Mark Richert in an interview. Wheeler issued a statement in December calling the use of video description during The Wiz Live! “genius.”
The top four broadcast TV networks and top five national nonbroadcast networks are required to provide 50 hours per quarter of described video during prime-time and children's programming, said filings from the Disability Advisory Committee. The draft NPRM would seek comment on raising the requirement to 87 hours per quarter, and expanding the requirement to cover the top 10 nonbroadcast networks, an industry official told us. The CVAA prevents the FCC from increasing the requirement by more than 75 percent, according to the DAC.
Though most of the commission's recent CVAA items have been unanimously approved, broadcasters and pay-TV carriers are likely to push back against the proposed expansion because it would increase their expenses, the industry official said. The DAC's recommendations include a number of questions about how the FCC would measure the costs and benefits of such an expansion. The DAC includes industry representatives from AT&T, Comcast and NCTA, as well as representatives from consumer groups.
Part of the increased popularity of video description comes from companies such as Comcast making it more accessible and available, Richert said. Though he praised the idea of increasing the amount of described video, Richert said a next step for the technology would be to find its own home, separate from the secondary audio channel that is also used for foreign language audio. A dedicated stream for video description would make it easier to explain to consumers how to access it, he said.