Senator Bam Aquino has announced that the S.B. 2239, a bill requiring all franchise holders or operators of television stations and producers of television programs to broadcast or present their programs with closed captions, of which he co-authored, has been approved by the senate.
S.B. 2239 was filed back in May 2014. It requires all franchise holders or operators of television stations and producers of television programs to broadcast or present their programs with closed captions options to benefit persons with hearing disabilities, including but not limited to newscast or news programs and pre-scripted programs.
There are programs, though, that shall be exempt from closed captioning:
1. Public service announcements that are shorter than ten minutes;
2. Programs shown in the early morning hours from 1:00 am to 6:00 am;
3. Programs that are primarily textual in nature;
4. When compliance would be economically burdensome.
The National Telecommunication Commission (NTC) and the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) will implement the rules and regulations of this bill.
Important yung #1 … public service anouncements … yun pa yung wala
I believe most PSAs include enough text in their ads :)
“When compliance would be economically burdensome.” – An ambiguous exception.
my thoughts too, eventually anyone can justify captioning as economically burdensome.
Higher production cost = more expensive ad placement = more expensive advertised products and services.
Also, how about the live shows? Like for example noon time shows?
Our cable provider had this feature 2 years ago and now it is discontinued. But when live TV shows they tend to delay to broadcast it and some movie TV channel like St*r Movies and H*O had a caption on it. You cannot control it weather you like or not it will disappear automatically or just turn off your TV for about 30 mins to avoid captions.