FCC Proposes Changes to Video Audio Crawl Rule

As we reported a few weeks ago, the FCC is reexamining its audio crawl rule.  When initially adopted in 2013, the rule that emergency information provided visually during non-newscast video programming must be made audibly accessible to individuals who are blind.  Due to technical limitations regarding the depiction of non-textual information, the requirement has been waived and never enforced.  As NAB pointed out it was “currently infeasible to comply with this requirement with respect to radar maps and similar moving graphics because they do not contain text files that can be converted to speech.”

Last week the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which would revise the requirement.  The FCC noted:

“We propose to revise the Audible Crawl Rule to specify that the requirement that video programming providers and distributors make visual emergency information provided during non-newscast programming accessible via a secondary audio stream is met if a textual crawl provides emergency information duplicative of or equivalent to non-textual visual emergency information, so long as the textual crawl is also conveyed aurally. In so doing, we explicitly and unequivocally recognize “that people who are blind or have low vision must have equal access to emergency information, just as sighted people do.”

The proposal tracks NAB’s long held position that the technology is not there to provide a separate audio channel to describe non-textual emergency information.

You can see the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking here.

You can access NYSBA’s previous story on the subjected here.