As we already know, in September the FCC granted many exemptions to churches from having to caption. Now, it looks to me like poor churches may never be legally required to caption?
(Update: A commenter pointed out that these exemptions are self-implementing exemptions that do not require a petition. For an explanation of "undue burden" see http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/caption_exemptions.html. However, I have seen these reasons (11 and 12) from http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/exemptions_from_cc_rules.html cited in petitions)
Self-implenting exemptions
(11) Captioning expense in excess of 2% of gross revenues. No video programming provider shall be required to expend any money to caption any video programming if such expenditure would exceed 2% of the gross revenues received from that channel during the previous calendar year.
(12) Channels producing revenues of under $3,000,000. No video programming provider shall be required to expend any money to caption any channel of video programming producing annual gross revenues of less than $3,000,000 during the previous calendar year other than the obligation to pass through video programming already captioned when received pursuant to paragraph (c) of this section.
So does this mean that the deaf community can not expect "poor" churches to caption, ever? Should we be pressuring the FCC to change its rules for exemptions? I'm not sure that can even be done, because the regulations are based on legislation passed by Congress.
What DOES have to change, is attitude! The attitude that producers of any video programming do not have to plan for captioning costs as a matter of routine! Captioning has been around for many years, yet as I read petition after petition, many of the petitioners were claiming that they found out about the requirement to caption "too late" to budget for it. Or they "didn't know" about the requirement to caption.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
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2 comments:
Churches are exempt from all kinds of things. They can be sexist, discriminatory, yadda yadda yadda all in the name of religion. Honestly, in some ways I think deaf people are better off if no religious materials are captioned...
But it's all the other companies applying for the exemptions, including schools and such, that really do have me infuriated...
These two exemptions (11 and 12) apply to channels . . . not individual program producers/providers. These two exemptions (11 and 12) are "self-implementing" or "automatic" exemptions; no application needed to get this exemption. A television channel that makes less than $3 million/year is not required to spend any money on captioning; and a television channel that makes more than $3 million/year is not required to spend more than 2% of its revenue on captioning. These exemptions do not apply to religious and other programs, because they are not "channels" of television programs; they are just "programs." Instead, hundreds of religious and hundreds of other kinds of programs have requested to be excused from captioning because they say captioning would be an "undue burden" (a significant difficulty or expense). The "undue burden" exemption is the only exemption that requires television program providers to apply to the FCC for and be granted an exemption from captioning.
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