Groups Want Better Closed-Captioning Services

Some video programmers may still be using cut-rate captioning services, said a filing from the Clinical Legal Education Program at the University of Colorado-Boulder posted Friday in FCC docket 05-231. Captioning vendors Feb. 18 sought an FCC waiver and petition for rulemaking. The letter Friday was signed by members from the Hearing Loss Association of America, Technology Access Program at Gallaudet University, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and others. It asked the FCC to provide programmers with incentives to seek out high-quality captioning services. "We agreed with Commission staffers’ observation that programmers must retain responsibility for ensuring the quality of closed captions and cannot simply pass quality certifications from captioning vendors on to video programming distributors to satisfy" certification rules, said the filing on the groups' meeting with staff in the Consumer & Governmental Affairs and Media bureaus and General Counsel's Office. "Programmers must take a similar level of responsibility for the captions in their programming as they do for the audio and video and should provide their own independent certifications that captions are intact and of high quality."