Universal Signs > Deaf Culture

Deaf people love the movies, too!
We cannot define modern American culture without mentioning the dramatic impact of American cinema. Movies are the quintessential and most beloved American pastime. Ironically, the film industry is exempt from the Americans with Disabilities Act; this means that the industries of film production and film distribution are not required to provide open or closed captioning for Deaf and Hard of Hearing audiences. The majority of Deaf and Hard of Hearing people are still unable to go to their neighborhood movie theater and see a movie with captions.

Captioning Technology
Currently, there are three technologies for movie theater captions: open captioning (Insight Cinema), Rear Window captioning (which involves the use of a viewing device that hangs on the back of the seat in front of the Deaf person, but are usually limited to only a few per theater), and Digital Theater Systems - Cinema Subtitling System, which projects the captions directly onto the movie.

Find an Open Captioned movie near you!
fomdi.com
Edward Cinemas
Insight Cinema

TV Captioning
In 1997, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unanimously approved new regulations which mandated captioning on virtually all television programming in the United States. The ruling took effect on January 1st, 1998 and was considered a victory for advocates of captioning. For programming that first aired prior to the effective date of the law, the FCC allowed ten-year transition period, after which 75% of the "old" programming must be captioned.

For "new" programming, airing for the first time after the effective date of the law, the FCC allowed an eight-year transition period with milestones along the way. At the end of that eight-year period (as of January 1, 2006), all new programming must be captioned (the original ruling said 95%, but it was updated to 100% in September 1998).

The FCC allowed quite a few exemptions to the rules, including:

No video programmer will be required to spend more than 2% of its annual gross revenues on captioning.
All non-English programming is exempted.
The Sept 1998 update makes Spanish required by 2010 (new programs) or 2012 (old programs).
"Non vocal" programming is exempted.
Commercials and public service announcements are exempted.
Programming from "new networks" is exempted.
All programs aired between 2:00 AM and 6:00 AM are exempted.

The upsetting part is that since the deadline of January 1, 2006, the FCC has granted far more exemptions that it ever has in the past. Recently the FCC received about 550 requests for TV programs to be shown without closed captions, and it appoved almost 300 of these requests. Most of these requests were not put on public notice. Deaf and Hard of Hearing advocacy groups and consumers had no chance to comment about these requests.

To add further insult, on September 12, 2006, the FCC announced publicly that two TV programs do not need to be closed captioned forever, which represents the first time that a program has been permanently exempt from captioning. The FCC also stated that it is inclined favorably to approve requests made by TV programs when the TV program is produced by a non-profit organization; when the organization receives nothing in exchange for their TV program or when they need to pay to broadcast their TV program; when the organization says the cost for closed captioning will result in reducing or stopping their TV program or other important activities.

The FCC should stand strong and not weaken the closed captioning rules due to pressure from networks and media producers. The FCC should not make a new category of TV programs that can be excused from the closed captioning rules. Without FCC support of closed captioning, hundreds of other TV programs may petition to be excused from closed captioning. The closed captioning rules have been around for years. Clearly, captioning is not too difficult or too expensive.

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) petitioned the FCC in protest of their recent decisions and to enforce captioning regulations. Read more about the NAD's efforts.

Some resources regarding this topic:
http://www.handsandvoices.org/articles/tech/dis_captions.html - an article on disappearing TV captions
http://www.robson.org/capfaq - closed-captioning FAQ
http://www.ncicap.org/Docs/history.htm - a history of TV captioning

Captions Promote Literacy
There are lots of reasons to support captioning! Captioning is not only essential for Deaf and Hard of Hearing audiences, but it is also a valuable literacy tool for both English as a Second Language students, adult literacy learners, and children who are learning to read.