Draft Video Description Item Would Expand Number of Networks Covered
An FCC draft order on increasing the required amount of video description, set for commissioners' Nov. 17 meeting, likely won't get unanimous support from the members and strongly resembles the NPRM from which it sprang, industry and agency officials told us Wednesday. The draft would raise the amount of video description required for networks -- an adjustment authorized by Congress in the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) -- and the number of networks covered by the requirement, which industry groups and Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly said oversteps FCC authority (see 1603310058). The draft item also includes a “no backsliding” rule that industry opponents have called outside FCC authority.
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“The CVAA does not provide the Commission authority to revise its reinstated video description rules in the wholesale fashion proposed in the Notice,“ said NCTA in an ex parte filing on the proposal. An increase in described programming is strongly supported by the American Council for the Blind, which did a survey showing a “clear and concise demand from consumers for more described programming.” Increasing the amount of video description will “advance the cause of universal access,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a blog post on the draft item. The agency didn't comment now.
The draft item is expected to increase the amount of required video description from 50 hours per quarter to 87.5 hours per quarter, FCC and industry officials told us. That's the maximum allowed under the CVAA, and since it's explicitly outlined in the legislation, it's unlikely industry groups would have strongly opposed a draft order that was limited to that increase, a pay-TV official told us. The draft item goes further, increasing the number of entities covered by the rule from the top four broadcast networks and top five nonbroadcast networks to the top five broadcast and top 10 nonbroadcast. The legislative history of the video description provision shows Congress intentionally removed language that would have allowed an increase in the scope of the requirement, said NCTA in filings on the NPRM. Pai said the added networks brings the increase in required video description hours from the 75 percent authorized in the CVAA to 192 percent.
The draft order also includes a rule change that would continue to apply the video description requirement to networks once covered under the rule even if they fall out of the top five or top 10 in their category, called the "no-backsliding” rule in several filings. The no-backsliding rule also would be an increase beyond the cap Congress approved, industry groups said.
O'Rielly and Pai are expected to dissent from the rule in part, an FCC official told us. That's a stance that matches their statements at the NPRM's release, when both said they could support an increase of video description hours under the CVAA but not the further steps the official told us are now included in the draft item. A similar split may be in the works for another CVAA item on circulation about the settings for closed captions, an official told us. Entities visiting the FCC to lobby on video description also discussed the captioning item, according to ex parte filings. Industry officials also see the item as an FCC overreach, and the Republican commissioners may take a similar stance when the item is voted. The captioning item is seen as a possible agenda item for the commission's December meeting, industry officials told us.