Previously, increase in online accessibility of video content rendered it unclear as to which material was to be legally captioned, as well as whose responsibility it was to provide captioning across various platforms.
FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement which was released in February 2016, “Those who produce and distribute video for television have a shared responsibility to ensure that closed captioning is both available and accurate.”
However, along with the shared responsibilities, video programmers will also make sure that the captioning will be done according to the FCC regulations and in most cases, online.
During his term as a Commissioner, Wheeler has been more focused towards communications accessibility and he in regards to this has made visible changes to FCC closed captioning regulations. Like the content which used to broadcast on TV must now be captioned online as well.
On the other hand, FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly welcomed the decision of distribution of closed captioning responsibility while commenting on it to be much more disordered than what has been proposed in the text. In his statement he said, “Disappointingly, the item seeps into troubling areas in at least two key places. First, the item creates an extremely convoluted mechanism by which a consumer closed captioning quality complaint could be forwarded from a video distributor to the programmer and then back again. Under this structure, the personal consumer information would be redacted before the forwarding could occur. Second, the item creates a three-tiered compliance ladder for the electronic newsroom technique procedures and then subsequently rejects it by establishing a special “rule allowing CGB to refer a captioning quality rule violation directly to the Enforcement Bureau for enforcement action, or for the Enforcement Bureau to pursue an enforcement action on its own, without first going through the compliance ladder…” for certain violations.”
While O’Rielly’s sounded doubtful on the given regulations, Commissioner Clyburn in his statement seems optimistic. In his statement he said,“First, this item will place the responsibility for closed captioning quality on video programming distributors as well as video programmers. Each will be held accountable, both for the provisioning and the quality of closed captioning issues that are primarily within their control — a common-sense update, to be sure. Video programming distributors will continue to be responsible for the provisioning of closed captioning, but now video programmers will be held responsible for the absence of captions, if they fail to provide them. It is my hope that these updates will not only help in compliance with our closed captioning rules but will assist in streamlining the resolution of closed captioning complaints or problems going forward.”