Thursday November 18 4:32 AM ET
FCC Mulls TV Programs for the Blind

By KALPANA SRINIVASAN Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Blind or vision impaired audiences may one day have to
rely less on the kindness of friends and family in making sense of
television programming with little dialogue and lots of action.
Federal regulators and advocates for the blind say the time has come to give
those with impaired vision access akin to what the deaf have now with closed
captioning.

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to offer proposals today
on how to mandate video description services, which describe the scene and
action not captured in dialogue, for television programming. It could make a
world of difference for people like Chet Avery, who is blind.

``When you watch television you rely upon the kindness of your wife or
members of your family to fill in when there is silence,'' said Avery, 62, a
retired Education Department administrator who lives in the Washington
suburb of Arlington, Va. ``I know some blind people that never watch
television because of the frustration. Television is not for them.''

The proposals, would could take several months before they are approved, are
part of a broader FCC effort to make technology more reachable for people
with disabilities.

``We must ensure they're full participants in the information age,'' FCC
Chairman Bill Kennard said in an interview. ``If you think of it as an
afterthought, it doesn't get done.''

That's one reason regulators and advocates want to act now so they can set
the stage to bring those services along as television makes the transition
from analog to digital.

There are 1.6 million blind people in the nation, but as many as 9 million
have vision problems such that they could benefit from television
description services, says Corinne Kirchner, director of policy research at
the American Foundation for the Blind.
Blind activists say the service will mean one less obstacle they face in
daily life.

``If I as a blind person don't have access to what really happened during
the presentation of a program, I am not able to communicate with my friends
and associates on the same level,'' said Charlie Crawford, executive
director of the American Council of the Blind.
Description services will also benefit people who have poor or failing
vision and people with learning disabilities, said Margaret Pfanstiehl,
chairwoman of the National Television Video Access Coalition.

``This is something that's going to affect millions of people,'' she said.
The service works like this: Descriptions of events are squeezed into the
natural pauses already in the program. For example, television audiences
could hear that a character in a scene is boarding a plane or decoding a
computer program.

This is typically done using a separate audio track that audiences can
switch on or off. A secondary soundtrack channel also is commonly used to
provide Spanish language dubbing of programming.
Since 1993, all television sets manufactured in the United States have been
equipped to receive this secondary audio track, typically at negligible
costs to consumers.

The FCC's proposal will ask for comment on such issues as how much
programming should include video description and whether certain shows - for
example, those during the prime-time slots - should offer the service first.

Already, some programming - including a number of shows carried by public
broadcasting stations - offer descriptive services. WGBH in Boston began in
the mid-1980s narrating such shows as ``Masterpiece Theater'' and
``Nature.'' WGBH also has done description services for old movies now shown
on ``Turner Classic Movies.''

Costs range between $3600 to $5000 per hour of descriptive programming, said
Larry Goldberg, director of media access at WGBH Boston.  Narrative
Television Network also has ``done thousands and thousands of hours of
television for network, broadcast and cable'' with costs between $1,500 to
$2,500 an hour, said NTN president Jim Stovall.
Broadcasters generally have opposed being required to offer video
description because of the costs involved and concerns that it would come at
the expense of those programs offering Spanish language audio. ``Video
description services would be burdensome for broadcasters, and given the
advent of digital television, this is not the time,'' said National
Association of Broadcasters spokesman Jeff Bobeck.


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