The Federal Communications Commission will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA), and its importance in building a more accessible telecommunications world for people with disabilities, with a public program on October 8, 2020. The event starts at 2 p.m. ET and lasts 2 hours. It will be virtual and can be viewed online at www.fcc.gov/live.

The Federal Communications Commission will be discussing on April 23rd a proposal on expanding audio description* requirements for up to 10 additional designated market areas (DMAs) each year, for 4 years, starting on January 1, 2021.

June 22, 2020, is the comment deadline for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposal on expanding audio description requirements. As we mentioned in a previous article, each year for four years the FCC proposes to expand its video description regulations by phasing them in for an additional 10 designated market areas (DMAs), beginning on January 1, 2021.

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) announced on February 18th a "landmark settlement with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)" similar to one reached with Harvard University last November.

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) announced on November 27th a "landmark settlement with Harvard University that institutes a series of new guidelines to make the university's website and online resources accessible for those who are deaf or hard of hearing.

If you are a user of captions, remember that you can always send your comments about problems with captioned programs to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Last month, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published a NBCUniversal petition for a limited waiver of video description requirements on behalf of USA Network (USA), owned by NBCUniversal.

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.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is preparing a report to Congress to inform about the availability, use, benefits and cost of video description. The Commission is asking TV stations and broadcast networks, multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), providers of video description, consumers of video description and anybody related to this topic to provide their feedback.