US news organisations argue for audio description exemptions

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Tuesday, 17 May 2011 13:44pm

The National Association of Broadcasters and Fox News Channel have written to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), requesting that they are given exemptions from audio description requirements.

The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, which became law last October, reinstated audio description (called video description in the US) quotas for television. The FCC is currently establishing a timetable and rules for the service.

In its filing to the FCC, the National Association of Broadcasters argued that, “Unlike closed captioning, which is intended to repeat words spoken as precisely as possible, video description inherently carries a subjective element, and accordingly should not be required to add a non-journalist describer’s words into the editorial product.”

For more information, and the complete texts of the two organisations’ filings, see the TV Newser website


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