Saturday, July 5, 2014

Vote Looms on Captioning Web videos

The FCC will make a decision on whether online video must include closed captioning this coming Friday. The vote is expected to be close, because two commission members are likely to vote in favor of the change and two others are likely to vote against it. Chairman Tom Wheeler supports the change and is quoted by Fox News as saying, “The commission previously adopted closed-captioning requirements for full-length video programming online. I propose...we go further and require captioning for video clips that end up on the Internet. Those who hear with their eyes should not be disadvantaged in their ability to access video information on the Internet.” Commissioner Mignon Clyburn is likely to cast the deciding vote Some business groups, like the National Association of Broadcasters either want the implementation to be slowed or object to it entirely, complaining about the technical difficulties of implementing it. Read more at Fox News and The Hill.