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Federal Communications Commission Announces Public Forum About Use of Enhanced Electronic Newsroom Technique (ENT) on Captioning Local News Programs

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will host a forum regarding the use of Enhanced Electronic Newsroom Technique (ENT) procedures for live captioning of local news programs. The forum will be on Friday, May 10, 2019, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:45 p.m., Eastern Time. It will be webcast with open captioning at www.fcc.gov/live.

ENT is a technique that converts the dialogue included on a teleprompter script into captions. Enhanced ENT Procedures are best practices that must be implemented by a TV station using ENT to caption its live programming. The enhanced ENT procedures entered into effect on June 30, 2014. Before that date many parts of the news programming were not captioned since they included content that was not scripted. The four major broadcast networks and their affiliate stations in the Top 25 designated market areas are not allowed to use ENT to caption live programming.

During the forum in May, the FCC will present an overview of the Commission’s enhanced ENT requirements and the current status of the implementation of the Enhanced ENT rules. In addition to that, two panels will discuss Enhanced ENT implementation challenges and solutions, and the stakeholder collaboration to implement Enhanced ENT best practices. Representatives of the National Association of the Deaf, Hearing Loss Association of America, and Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc. will be part of the presenters in the stakeholders segment of the forum.

Audience members may ask questions in person or by e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Updates to the agenda, as well as presentation materials, will be made available on the event webpage at https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/events/2019/05/enhanced-ent-forum.

 

Source:

- "Enhanced ENT Forum." Federal Communications Commission, https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/events/2019/05/enhanced-ent-forum

- "Small Entity Compliance Guide.Closed Captioning of Live Programming on Television: Enhanced Electronic Newsroom Technique (ENT) Procedures." Federal Communications Commission, February 12, 2015, https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/events/small_entity_compliance_guide.pdf