Below are comments filed with the Federal communications commission by the
National Federation of the Blind opposing a proposed rule that would
require the major broadcast networks such as ABC, FOX, CBS, NBC, PBS, UPN,
and the WB Network to air about four hours a week of programming that is
audio described.

kelly



February 23, 2000 Magalie Roman Salas Office of the Secretary
Federal Communications Commission 445 Twelfth Street, S. W., TW-
A325 Washington, D. C. 20554

Dear Ms. Salas: RE: COMMENTS ON NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULEMAKING IN
THE MATTER OF VIDEO DESCRIPTION OF VIDEO PROGRAMMING

MM Docket No. 99- 339 The National Federation of the Blind
welcomes the opportunity to comment on the above- titled Notice
of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) which proposes to mandate use of
audio description of visual images by television networks and
stations using the Secondary Audio Programming (SAP) channel. The
National Federation of the Blind supports continued development
of audio description on a voluntary basis. We oppose the
imposition of audio description as a federal mandate.

We recognize that the NPRM proposes only a limited mandate at the
outset, but the FCC's intent to "expand these requirements" is
very clear.

When blind people gather and talk, the hottest topic has always
been access to information. These days, our talk is dominated by
terms such as technology, computers, names of software
applications, and Braille printers. Sooner or later, however,
someone will bring up television-- but not for the purported
problem the FCC proposes to fix. Rather, we decry the lack of
access to emergency weather and news information scrolled across
the bottom of the screen; the lack of access to the identities of
talking heads in national and local news broadcasts; the lack of
access to sports scores for our local team; or the lack of access
to printed information during commercials some of which are
healthrelated and display vital phone numbers. In other words, a
fundamental part of television is inaccessible to us, but that
part is not the plot of a situation comedy nor the costumes in a
televised drama.

When these same blind people turn to more social topics, favorite
movies and beloved television series form part of our
conversation just as they do for sighted Americans. Some like the
service of "descriptive video"; some dislike it; many are frankly
indifferent.

Part of the reason for this wide disparity in the reaction of
blind people to "descriptive video" is the makeup of the blind
population itself. While figures vary, most agree that there are
somewhere near one million legally blind persons in the United
States. But only about one in ten persons in this population
cannot see anything. The

term "legally blind" means having 10% or less of normal vision.
Many in the blind population, in other words, can see some, and
television is one of the things persons with poor vision can see.
However, persons with poor vision cannot read crawlers or names
of talking heads or phone numbers printed or flashed on the
screen.

Another reason why so many in the blind population are ambivalent
to "descriptive video" is more fully detailed in our specific
comments: the lack of standards. Many blind people don't use the
current service because they find it irritating, overdone, and
full of irrelevant information. Many of us have experimented with
secondary audio only to turn it off in relief and watch the
program with our other senses in peace. While the use of SAP is
obviously voluntary, this reaction raises questions, more fully
detailed below, as to whether that voluntary use by blind people
should be linked to mandatory production by networks.

But the most important reason why mandatory "descriptive video"
is not supported by many blind people is the frustration of
having genuinely important information right there on the screen
to which we do not have access. We fail to comprehend why anyone
would either want to receive or want to require describing
costumes, lighting, and gestures when the real information
remains unavailable.

We urge FCC to place "descriptive video" in abeyance until the
real access issue is solved: access to information printed or
flashed on our screens. The purveyors of this information come
from the entire universe of television: networks in news shows
and emergency crawler information; local stations with emergency
weather information, local news and sports; producers of shows at
all levels; and advertisers. That's a very large bite for FCC to
contemplate, but it's the real first bite in achieving access for
the blind to television's inaccessible areas. Once we have access
to information equal to those viewing the screen with vision and
once the needs of this vital access for use of SAP are
determined, then and only then will it be time to consider
whether an actor's silent progress across the screen (usually
obvious in the plot anyway) or the vase of flowers (which may be
pretty and unnecessary to the plot) need to be described and what
relation this entertainment material should bear to any printed
information such as weather announcements that may appear.

In other words, many of us would turn on our SAP if we could get
the printed information; many of us would not if we can only
learn about costumes and facial expressions. We urge FCC to give
us information and to worry about entertainment at some later
date.

What we truly seek is technically feasible. What we truly seek
will never be provided unless FCC mandates it. We therefore have
the following more specific comments on the NPRM:

1. Federal mandate lacks sufficient support among blind people.
The National Federation of the Blind is a membership
organization, and our membership is overwhelmingly composed of
blind and visually impaired individuals. With

more than 50, 000 members, we are America's largest and most
active organization of the blind with hundreds of chapters
located throughout the fifty states, the District of Columbia,
and Puerto Rico. Our members are well aware of the fact that--
when done right-- audio description can add to the entertainment
value of certain movies and television programs. However, that
does not justify a federal mandate for its use.

In July of 1996, thousands of our delegates and members gathered
at our annual National Convention and discussed the issue of
mandated audio description. As a result, our convention
democratically (and overwhelmingly) adopted the attached
resolution (9604), which expresses our Federation's opposition to
federally mandated audio description. We trust that the FCC will
give this resolution great weight in considering whether to go
forward with rulemaking in this area.

As blind citizens, we in the NFB have long been concerned that
undue emphasis on entertainment as an issue for the blind draws
attention away from the real and cruel forms of economic
discrimination and exclusion of blind people from normal
integration into society. Our members understand the difference
between what we as blind people might enjoy versus what we really
need. Audio description is clearly in the former category. As for
our real needs, we would much prefer that the FCC work with us to
use the SAP channel or other means to provide us voice output of
print- displayed safety messages, news captions, and other
important information. We are concerned that mandated SAP channel
use for audio description could potentially interfere with these
far more compelling uses.

2. Audio description not an analogue to closed captioning. Closed
captioning of television dialogue is undoubtedly very important
for deaf people. It is, no doubt, more important for deaf
television viewers than audio description is for the blind. The
fact that countless thousands of "TV sound" receivers are sold to
the general population shows that television programming can
usually be enjoyed by the average member of the public without a
picture. There is, of course, no such market for video- only
television receivers. Yet, we note that the FCC has chosen to
model its proposed audio description mandates on its closed-
captioning rules. In our view, such an inappropriate analogy will
only lead the FCC down the wrong road to the imposition of
inappropriate rules.

3. No standards exist. The closed captioning model also fails
here because closed captioning does not present the serious
practical difficulties that would be presented by mandated audio
description. Basically, closed captioning just conveys scripted
dialogue. It does not require creation of a new product, as audio
description does. In contrast, audio description is very
subjective. Its creators must make countless value judgments
about what to describe, when to interrupt spoken dialogue or
musical score, etc. Yet the NPRM proposes to impose an audio
description mandate when no recognized standards exist for making
such determinations.

Today many blind people may find some audio- described movies and
programs enjoyable, but some are useless or even annoying. It is,
of course, not satisfactory for the FCC to say that blind people
(the alleged intended beneficiaries of the proposed regulations)
are free to turn off the SAP channel if they find a poorly
described program annoying, when the FCC has forced programmers
to incur significant costs for its production. Again, we are
dealing here with more difficult issues than those that have
arisen with closed captioning. Audio description and closed
captioning services are not analogues and the FCC should not
treat them as if they were.

4. Safety first. To the extent that any federally mandated use of
the SAP channel for the blind is justified, the SAP channel
should be used to transmit audio warnings about hazardous weather
and other emergency conditions. Often such warnings are scrolled
across the screen for sighted folks. The SAP channel should be
used to transmit the same information to blind people. It would
indeed be ironic if the SAP channel were unavailable to warn
blind people about an impending emergency because it was already
tied up describing the set of some sitcom so that a network could
comply with its governmentimposed audio description mandate.

Although paragraph 30 of the NPRM says that adoption of digital
technologies may eventually eliminate the problem of competing
SAP channel uses, that capability does not exist today, and the
FCC should not ignore this issue in today's television
environment.

5. The news exclusion. News coverage is television's most
important public service. However, the FCC's proposed audio
description mandate would apparently exclude "live newscasts"
(NPRM paragraph 18). Here we must point out that many newscasts--
both network and local- now print the names of speakers without
oral identification. Thus, a sighted person could read that the
speaker is "Senator Smith," but the blind person would not know
who is speaking. The FCC should work with us to encourage
networks and other news programmers to identify orally speakers
used on news clips. That might not even need to tie up the SAP
channel. But, in any case, it involves a much higher priority for
us than mandated audio description. Providing oral output of
printed material would also not raise the subjectivity and
standards problems inherent in producing audio description
programming. We urge the FCC to put its focus on our need for
news ahead of entertainment.

6. Other printed information. Many advertisements contain print-
displayed information such as phone numbers and addresses. Some
of these advertisements are carried on networks, but others are
local. Just behind print- displayed emergency and news
information, our experience is that blind people complain most
about not being able to get the information printed on the

screen during advertisements. This information is sometimes
health- related. Sometimes it steers people to other sources of
information, such as government agencies. Many blind people have
reported calling stations only to find out that such information
is not retained by the stations. Without the information being
voiced as it is displayed in print visually, there is simply no
way blind people can get the data.

7. Focus on needed information instead of networks. As noted
above, the need for audio presentation of emergency, news, and
other print- displayed information, is as likely to involve local
stations as networks. Networks are the wrong target. Any proposed
regulation addressed to meet our needs must focus on what
information needs to be provided rather than on who is being
regulated. Such an approach would cause all programmers,
advertisers, and stations to think twice before presenting
printed information without some other method of presenting it to
their blind audiences.

8. Needs of Spanish- speaking blind people. Paragraph 30 of the
NPRM notes that mandated SAP channel use for audio description
would put blind users in competition with Spanish- speaking
users. We would note that blind people constitute a cross-
section of the society. Some Spanish- speaking Americans are also
blind. We have no doubt that the vast majority of Spanish-
speaking blind people would much prefer to have the SAP channel
used to translate Englishlanguage dialogue into Spanish rather
than to have it used for English- language description of sets,
costumes, and the like.

9. Conclusion. We strongly recommend that the FCC refocus any
proposed regulation to address first how the SAP channel and
other means should be used to meet the need to provide voice
output of emergency, news, and other print- displayed
information. Only when these fundamental issues are resolved
should the FCC turn to the secondary entertainment issues
involving audio description. First things first. In addition, any
such regulation should cover all programmers, not just a few
network producers.

Respectfully submitted, James Gashel

Director of Governmental Affairs NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND


NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

RESOLUTION 96- 04 WHEREAS, presentation of information by audio-
visual means is now a vital part of modern life; and

WHEREAS, audio description of visual images is a service that
adds oral description of visual images to television and movie
programs; and

WHEREAS, audio description of visual images can be quite useful
by adding to the entertainment value of the presentation for
blind viewers; and

WHEREAS, the Federal Communications Commission is considering the
extent to which audio description should be required in
television programming; and

WHEREAS, although audio description may at times make the
presentation more enjoyable, this fact alone does not necessarily
justify a requirement by the federal government that virtually
all audio/ visual programming must contain audio descriptions of
visual images; and

WHEREAS, a requirement by the federal government for audio
description in virtually all television programming would place
an undue emphasis on entertainment as an issue for the blind and
tend to draw public attention away from the real and cruel forms
of economic discrimination and exclusion of blind people from
normal integration into society which exist: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
convention assembled this fifth day of July, 1996, in the City of
Anaheim, California, that this organization support voluntary use
of audio description in television programming but oppose the
imposition of audio description as a federal mandate; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that, to the extent that a mandate is
justified, we urge the Federal Communications Commission to
require both audio and visual presentation of essential
information for the public such as warnings of hazardous weather
or other emergency conditions.


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