Charlie,
We did see it. I even wrote and said that I thought it was excellent.
Miriam
_____
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Charles Crawford
Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2016 4:25 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] My testimony for the FCC on audio description.
You can use it as a guide for what you write.
Hi fellow Blind-Democracy folks,
Please read the following testimony and feel free to write your own and send
it to Comments@xxxxxxx where they will make sure your testimony gets to the
right folks for their review. Don't forget to include your name and address
so that they know who you are and where you live.
Thanks muchly,
Charlie Crawford.
Text of e-mail testimony.
Mr. Charles Crawford
1906 Rookwood Road
Silver Spring, Md. 20910
Messrs.,
After 41 years since I first approached the Federal Communications
Commission with respect to the
need for television to accommodate the needs of blind and visually impaired
viewers, I write to you with
great anticipation and gratitude for your efforts to expand our access to
description and my only fear is
that there are those who would argue for further delays in the
implementation of your rules and
proposed rules. I ask that you consider the following in the framework of
what I have said since I truly
believe the time has finally come to allow us to have the access that every
seeing person takes for
granted.
1. In 1975 at an event in Boston, Massachusetts, I testified to
the FCC that television ads which
offered an inviting advertisement for a product that I would clearly wish to
get, denied me that
opportunity by announcing " available at these fine stores " and listing in
print those
stores. Blind and low vision people have been subjected to this kind of
discrimination, even to
this day, and it needs to cease.
2. I fully support the expansion of the number of hours of audio
escribed programming to 87.5
hours and to the expanded group of broadcast and cable providers. There is
no question that
the amount of programming I watch would increase if I had a larger selection
of choices to
review. The universe of blind and low vision persons is sufficiently
diverse to require a diversity
of programming to be available.
3. It is very important that the notion of backsliding must not
be allowed to occur. Once a
program is described, it needs to continue to be described. It is nothing
short of blatant
rejection of the value of viewers to simply end description of a program
when another program
starts being described. More importantly in this vein, when described
programs go off to other
networks or stations, they need to have the audio description go with them
as well. I have had
the experience of sitting down to watch a rerun of a program that I had
watched in the past with
description suddenly broadcast without the description. Unfair? You bet and
this must not be
allowed. Still more difficult in this regard is the option of selecting an
episode of a program
offered on demand and to not have description accompany it as it had in the
past! We have the
same choices as other people and yet are limited to the enjoyment of those
choices only to the
original broadcast on the original network and not to other times when
everyone else can enjoy
the program. This must end.
4. It is very important that when audio description is available
for a program and there is also
another language such as Spanish dubbed for the viewing pleasure of those
who speak that
language, that the audio description be made available on an alternative
channel. In short, an
audio description channel needs to be available to insure that the benefit
of audio description is
not lost to a desire on the part of the broadcaster to accommodate those
with secondary
language preferences.
5.
It does us little good to know that there are programs being described and
yet not to be able to find out
what they are, when they are on, and where we can find them! There are
snippets of information from
various places, but the searcher has to look in specific places and try to
piece together the availability of
what they may wish to watch. I firmly believe that the FCC needs to require
the availability of
information concerning audio described programming in a commonly accessible
and easy to access
medium and place.
6. While it may not be the purview of the FCC to regulate the
quality of description, I believe that
description consistent with the quality of that offered by the group
associated with WGBH
Media Center in Boston is highly preferable to sometimes difficult to
understand description
that is spoken too fast and often at too low volume to meet the goal of good
flow. The FCC
ought also to require that the balance of volume between the description and
the program
sound be sufficient to understand the description as well as the program. I
have had times
when the programming was good, but the description so low, or spoken so
quickly, that I had to
strain to hear it and more often than not, was not able to fully appreciate
the program.
7. Consistent with my comment earlier about not backsliding, I
reiterate my comment that once
described, always described, is important to maintain. Our goal is not to
simply provide
description as a novelty, but actually to honor the civil right of every
American to access to that
offered to the public. The availability of description in England for
example is almost universal
and we need to achieve that level of accessibility in this country as soon
as possible.
8. Because both the programming and the description are presented
in audio, I ask the FCC to do
what can be done to insure that programming, description, and commercials be
at a consistent
audio level so as not to force the viewers to constantly adjust the volume
of their televisions due
to sudden loud or soft audio that is distressing.
9. To the extent that the FCC can act, I ask that the makers of
television and cable devices not be
allowed to charge more for accessibility features on their televisions.
Accessibility is protected
under the ADA and a disabled person ought not pay more for accessibility
than a nondisabled
person pays for their TV.
10. There are networks which broadcast classic television
programming which was not produced
with any description. The FCC should consider ways in which the programs
that are being
presented could be made accessible. Old programs such as Gunsmoke ought to
be made
accessible.
11. Lastly, I applaud the FCC for requiring that the content of
emergency information be made
accessible. I also support the choice of the viewer not to want to hear
that information since it
interrupts the audio of the program that they are watching. This may sound
trivial, yet I had the
annoying experience of watching a program where bulletins of approaching
thunderstorms
where being presented and the noise of the beeps and the repetition of the
information twice if
not three times took up too much time and was distracting for certain. Just
hearing the beeps
would have been sufficient for me to decide if I wanted to investigate what
was being presented
rather than having to listen to the reports over and over again. My
solution is simple. Require
that the equipment be able to turn off the vocalization of the emergency
information and only
allow the beeps announcing that there is a bulletin. Then the viewer is
free to fully enjoy the
program when the information being presented is already known or available
from another
source. In the event the viewer wants to know the information being
presented, they have the
ability to turn it on or off which affords us real choice.
I appreciate your attention to these comments and please let me end where I
started. I have fought for
41 years to get audio or video description as it is called and I am very
hopeful that you will assist in the
fruition of these requests since I am very hopeful that I will be able to
take advantage of television,
movies, and theater as I once did with sight and now am only limited by
blindness.
In appreciation of your consideration and assistance,
July 14,20016 - Charles H. Crawford.
