Captioning

March 25, 2010. COAT affiiate WGBH Access Media Center is asking for participants in an anonymous online survey about television news captioning errors. Viewers of TV news who use closed captions are invited to respond by Monday April 12, 2010. The survey takes about 15-20 minutes to complete, and can be filled out in multiple visits.

On March 24, 2010, leaders from several COAT affiliates – American Academy of Audiology, ASHA, HLAA, NorCal Center on Deafness, NVRC, NAD, and TDI – met with staff from the FCC's Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau (CGB) on concerns about captioned telephon

March 4, 2010.  COAT applauds the Association for Airline Passenger Rights (AAPR) campaign directed to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to improve accessibility of in-flight entertainment such as movies and infomercials. The campaign, begun in February, seeks to gather 10,000 petition signatures.

On March 2, 2010, Rosaline Crawford, Director of the Law and Advocacy Center of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), spoke on H.R. 3101 at the "Broadband & Cable Industry Law 2010" forum in San Francisco sponsored by the Practicing Law Institute (PLI). On the panel entitled "Developments in Cable Technology," targeted to attorneys in the cable television industry, Ms.

February 19, 2010.  COAT applauds the new closed captioning complaint procedure at the FCC that permits direct filing on-line.

On Friday February 26, 2010, COAT leaders met again with various industry representatives to discuss the Video Programming provisions in HR 3101, which had not yet been directly discussed in previous talks.  These provisions -- Sections 201 thru 205 found in Title II --  address closed captioning, reinstatement of video description, accessible emergency information on TV, and accessible user program & device control interfaces.

COAT is very glad to see that PBS-TV's "Digital Nation" program, that aired February 2, 2010, includes the captioning option in the online replay version. While the program did not address accessibility & usability for people with disabilities, it does raise some of the social impact concerns that affect us all.

COAT applauds International Friend, Media Access Australia, for moving in a new direction with its Web Accessibility campaign in January 2010. They are now targeting online news websites for accessibility review.