Unanimous Approval Expected for Audio Description Expansion

A draft order on expanding audio description requirements to all U.S. broadcast markets within 10 years is expected to be unanimously approved at Thursday’s FCC commissioners’ open meeting with few changes, said agency and industry officials. Though broadcasters asked for concessions and objected to proposals to expand audio description in the past (see 1904020059), they have been largely quiet this time around. The draft order’s docket,11-43, hasn’t had an ex parte filing on the proposal since May.

“Commenters unanimously support the expansion of the Commission’s audio description rules to all remaining” designated market areas, said the draft order. “It’s difficult to push back on something like this,” said Clark Rachfal, American Council of the Blind director-advocacy and governmental affairs: “I will say we wish we'd reach all designated market areas before a decade, but it's a very positive step to be expanding.”

The draft order would phase in audio description requirements for an additional 10 DMAs each year for 10 years, until the rules cover all 210 U.S. DMAs. Under current rules, the top 100 DMAs will be required to provide the service by Jan. 1, but the draft order would expand the requirement to DMAs 101-110 on Jan. 1, 2025, and add 10 more each year, reaching all U.S. DMAs in 2035. The draft order would use the Nielsen rankings as of Jan.1, 2023, to determine the DMA order. Though the agency had sought comment on creating a waiver process for the expansion, the draft order would use the FCC’s existing waiver processes. The agency doesn’t expect the expansion process to be economically burdensome, and waiver requests should be “exceedingly rare,” the draft order said. Broadcasters already have the capability to pass through raw audio description because they use the same technology for accessible emergency alerts, Rachfal said.

The order’s expansion of audio description is the most the FCC is allowed to do under the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, but accessibility advocates want Congress to require more, Rachfal said. The proposed Communications, Video and Technology Accessibility Act (CVTA), backed by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., would require all video -- broadcast, cable, streaming and on social media -- to feature audio description (see 2307250036). Under current law, broadcast or MVPD content that originally aired with closed captions must also have those captions when it moves to the internet for streaming or other IP video uses. There's no such requirement for audio description, Rachfal said. Eshoo and Markey refiled the CVTA bill in July. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has been a vocal supporter of the CVTA and said the FCC needs it to keep up with changing technology.

Broadcasters have been largely doing “a great job” of offering audio description beyond what’s required of them by the FCC and the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, Rachfal said. FCC rules don’t require audio description for live content, and many broadcasters are providing it anyway and attaching audio description to more content than is required each quarter, he said. They could still go further, Rachfal said. “We’ve not heard from any of the broadcasters that every one of their network affiliates is passing through audio description," Rachfal said. “I put that challenge out to our partners in the broadcast community: who is going to be the first?”