[EAS] Another NPRM: Needless & Pointless Rule Making

[Gary Timm]

Adrienne,
Paragraph 5 of the NPRM says that last year FCC enacted a rule (again at order of CVAA) to be complied with by July 1, 2012, that full-power affiliates of the top four national networks located in the top 25 television markets are required to provide 50 hours per calendar quarter of video-described prime time and/or children's programming.  This also applies to MVPDs that operate systems with 50,000 or more subscribers on each of the top 5 non-broadcast networks that they carry on those systems.
The rule for TV stations extends to stations in markets 26-50 on July 1, 2015.
The NPRM says "Video descriptions for DTV are provided as a secondary audio service, and typically a viewer can access VD through an onscreen menu".
 
So the presumption I guess is that at least these major market TVs must reserve the secondary audio stream for the required DV, so is good place to put this new emergency description audio.  I wonder how these major market stations are then handling Spanish?  FCC does acknowledge that Spanish conflict - thus is asking in the NPRM for a better way to do this, or a way to mitigate the conflict.
 
Gary

--- On Thu, 11/29/12, Adrienne Abbott <nevadaeas at charter.net> wrote:

>From: Adrienne Abbott <nevadaeas at charter.net>

>Yes, that's "descriptive video" and I thought the requirement was to be
>phased in according to market size over a period of years. Have we reached
>the end of the phase-in? The problem with using the secondary audio stream
>is that many stations use that channel for Spanish translations of their
>local news programming and in some cases, the stations have sponsors for
>that service. Can it be used for both? Spanish audio during local news
>programming and descriptive video during entertainment programming? Does the
>rule provide that kind of flexibility? Or are stations supposed to pick and
>choose between minority groups?

>Adrienne Abbott
>Nevada EAS Chair
>Nevada Broadcasters Association