FCC Will Examine Closed Captioning of Public Access, Government Programming

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The FCC will run a forum in November to promote discussion about closed captioning of public access and governmental programming shown on television.

The goal is "to raise awareness of issues surrounding captioning of public access and governmental programming," according to the FCC announcement.

Topics will include benefits of captioning such programming, the relevant captioning obligations of programmers and stations, and effective captioning solutions. 

The agency expects local government professionals, policy makers, captioning vendors, consumer groups, engineers and programming industry representatives to participate in the forum, which will be held at the FCC headquarters in Washington on Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 10.  The event  will be free and open to the public. 

There will be a live captioned video stream of the session, with sign language interpreters, open captioning and assistive listening devices provided on site. 

Gary Arlen
Gary Arlen

Contributor Gary Arlen is known for his insights into the convergence of media, telecom, content and technology. Gary was founder/editor/publisher of Interactivity Report, TeleServices Report and other influential newsletters; he was the longtime “curmudgeon” columnist for Multichannel News as well as a regular contributor to AdMap, Washington Technology and Telecommunications Reports. He writes regularly about trends and media/marketing for the Consumer Technology Association's i3 magazine plus several blogs. Gary has taught media-focused courses on the adjunct faculties at George Mason University and American University and has guest-lectured at MIT, Harvard, UCLA, University of Southern California and Northwestern University and at countless media, marketing and technology industry events. As President of Arlen Communications LLC, he has provided analyses about the development of applications and services for entertainment, marketing and e-commerce.