Closed Captioning - The Early Struggles

It’s interesting the way many things we take for granted today had to be fought for over time. One example is closed captioning. Oftentimes right at the beginning of a program, an announcer will inform the viewer "closed captioning provided by" and list various sponsors. However, closed captioning wasn’t always available; people had to fight for closed captioning to be on all programming.

The world around us is segregated in many ways--people like different foods, sports teams, and music. However, some segregation is detrimental to an individual’s sense of well-being, and society as a whole. Closed captioning helped desegregate hearing persons from deaf and hard of hearing persons with respect to television. Back before closed captioning was made mandatory by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, not everyone could watch and enjoy the same programming on television. People who were deaf and hard of hearing were left out of culture simply because they could not hear.

However, one program did use open captioning in 1972, The French Chef. The open captioning appearing on the television screen to was visible to everyone, which apparently upset many hearing people. Thus closed captioning was invented. With closed captioning, people choose to use a device called a caption decoder to reveal the closed captions, rather than them being visible to everyone, which is why it is called closed captioning. Closed captioning using a separate caption decoder was the best solution at the time, but requiring the purchase of the necessary caption decoder highlighted a person’s inability to hear and in some cases was a significant burden. Also, since very few programs used closed captioning, not a lot of viewers bought the decoders, so there was no incentive to use closed captioning on more programming. The open and then closed captioning in the ‘70s was a great start, but there needed to be more to unite all viewers.

The Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 required that every television with a screen larger than 13 inches have a caption decoder built into it beginning in 1993. No longer would purchase of a separate caption decoder represent a stigma or burden for deaf and hard of hearing people who wanted to use closed captioning. Use of close captioning came a long way, but there was still a lot that had to be done so that closed captions would become as ubiquitous on television as it is today.

One very interesting movement related to closed captioning was Caption Action, which fought to get closed captions on home videotapes. Even though more and more television programs were using closed captioning, there was still little closed captioning being done on films and television programs on VHS. We’re so used today to having subtitles or closed captions on videos and DVDs that it’s hard to imagine purchasing them without captioning, but Caption Action was a necessary campaign back in the 1980s and 1990s. It took the involvement of Variety and Little Rascals star Spanky McFarland, but finally due to Caption Action more and more companies started putting closed captioning on their home videos.

More closed captioning led to the use of more closed captioning by competing companies, but even though the caption decoder was already in most televisions in the 1990s, some companies still didn’t want to pay to have close captioning included on its programming. Closed captioning was an extra expense companies did not want to pay even though they were discriminating against people who were deaf or hard of hearing. Fortunately, people from the deaf and hard of hearing community campaigned and protested and brought enough attention to this discrimination related to the lack of captioning that Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Over the following ten years, the FCC gradually phased in closed captioning requirements, until 100% of all new programming was required to be closed captioned in January of 2006. Finally close captioning was mandatory on television. Everyone can now use closed captioning to understand and enjoy the same programs.

The FCC is also phasing in Spanish closed captioning, and will be requiring 100% of new Spanish-language programming to be closed captioned by January 1, 2010. This is a very interesting development considering that a large portion of those individuals purchasing closed captioning decoders in the 1980s were people using the closed captioning to learn English.

Of course, as technology changes, changes in close captioning regulations have followed suit. Similar to caption decoders being mandatory on analog televisions after 1993, in July of 2002 it became a federal requirement that closed captioning decoders must be present in digital televisions as well. Unfortunately, many high definition displays do not include a television tuner and therefor do not need to contain a caption decoder. Ensuring the connections between the satellite or cable boxes which contain the caption decoders and the high definition displays are compatible and capable of carrying the closed captioning has been a major challenge.

Closed captioning is a necessary tool for deaf and hard of hearing people, people whose first language isn’t English, and anyone else who wants a more accurate idea of the dialogue or language in a television program. It’s unfortunate that the development of closed captioning was delayed by financial concerns and questions of who would actually want to use closed captioning. It seems strange now that groups such as Caption Action and so many Congressional acts were needed for the closed captioning that we take for granted today. This all makes closed captioning companies such as Video Caption Corporation in New York that much more necessary and interesting. Closed captioning companies are part of the history of telecommunications, a history that has seen a lot of struggle and unrest when it comes to equality for all users.