WASHINGTON—The National Association of Broadcasters and NCTA-The Internet & Television Association have asked the FCC to extend the comment and reply deadlines on the FCC’s proposed rules for live closed captioning by one month.
Comments are currently due Sept. 13 and replies are due Sept. 30; the organizations are asking the deadlines be moved to Oct. 15 and Oct. 30, respectively, citing an upcoming conference between the associations and the deaf and hard of hearing community, Oct. 3.
“We request an extension to provide both industry and advocacy organizations time to prepare comments that reflect closed captioning quality discussions that will take place during an upcoming conference among NAB, NCTA and representatives of deaf and hard of hearing advocacy organizations on Oct. 2, 2019,” they said.
[Read more: FCC Debates Evolution of Live Captioning for News]
“We plan to discuss at the upcoming meeting the full range of current policy issues and technical developments regarding closed captioning, including many of the issues raised in the Petition,” they continued. “We intend to address the Commission’s best practices approach to ensuring captioning quality, consumers’ views of live captioning and the progress of the Disability and Rehabilitation Research Project study of captioning quality metrics. We also plan to discuss emerging closed captioning technologies such as automated speech recognition, which is critical to the instant Petition.”
