forwarding the mail which i have got from the other mailing list.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [SayEverything] Fwd: Join in the Celebration and Discussion
about Described TV--Read One Advocacy Pioneer's Story, Get Involved
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2012 08:45:24 +0530
From: Bhavesh Shah <homebiz.s...@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: sayeveryth...@sayeverything.org
To: sayeveryth...@sayeverything.org
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: AFB DirectConnect <mrich...@afb.net>
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2012 18:18:46 -0400
Subject: Join in the Celebration and Discussion about Described
TV--Read One Advocacy Pioneer's Story, Get Involved
To: AFB Subscriber <afb...@afb.net>
AFB DirectConnect Letterhead
It Gets Personal!
A Described TV Advocacy Pioneer Celebrates New Era of Accessible
Programming
Invites You to Join the Conversation!
For further information, contact:
Mark Richert, Esq.
Director, Public Policy, AFB
(202) 469-6833
mrich...@afb.net <mailto:mrich...@afb.net>
Now that a new era of accessible TV viewing through mandatory video
description has dawned on July 1, a founding father of the movement to
make it happen reflects on the long and winding journey that the vision
loss community has taken to achieve this milestone in full and equal
participation in American life. Read the below personal account of Paul
Schroeder, AFB's Vice President for Programs and Policy, celebrate with
us the video description accomplishment that so many in our field helped
to make possible, and join in the conversation about where we are and
where we need to go from here by commenting on Paul's blog post at:
http://www.afb.org/blog
Watching TV Blind: A Love-Hate Relationship
by
Paul W. Schroeder
I have a longstanding love hate relationship with television. And, for
20 years now, video description has hung like a shadow over this
relationship.
I grew up on the great classic comedies of the 1970s: “All in the
Family,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” and “M.A.S.H.” I spent far too
many summer vacation hours lazily watching shows from “Love Boat” to
gameshows. I later adopted sitcoms like “Cheers” and “The Cosby Show,”
along with a sprinkling of a few medical and legal dramas. In other
words, I was a pretty typical American TV watcher.
Yet, there was always a disappointing aspect to TV programs (okay, there
are many in fact, but that’s another story). There was always the
question: “What’s going on?” And too often, there wasn’t anyone willing
or able to answer it for me. After all, as a blind person, I missed the
visual information the programs presented: telltale facial expressions,
audience laughter not triggered by dialogue, the silent entrance of a
new character and, of course, the complete shift of setting. These, and
many other aspects about television, are confounding to people who
cannot see the screen (or who cannot see it very well).
As a consequence, I have what may be unhealthy love for the work of
Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter whose shows from “Sports Night,” to “West
Wing,” to “Studio 60” were heavily dialogue-driven. These days, I’m
finding very little TV that I want to watch, and I’m mostly snarling at
my teen and young-adult daughters about their TV viewing choices
(typical parent, I guess).
Meanwhile, in the 1990s, WGBH brought us its Descriptive Video Service
(DVS), which brought movies and some public television shows to life.
For me, and as importantly, my sighted family, DVS was a blessing,
providing much more information about movies and shows, thereby
relieving my family of the pressure to provide haphazard description.
Also during the early 90s, closed captioning was beginning to take off,
providing access for people who are deaf or have hearing loss.
Disability advocates (yours truly among them) began pushing for a law to
require TV programs to be captioned and described. In 1996,
Communications Act amendments were passed, bringing us Section 255,
which required telecommunications access, but also Section 713, which
required captioning of TV programs. Advocates tried hard at that time to
get description required as well, but representatives of the television
industry strenuously objected to description; apparently captioning
would be accepted as a requirement, but description would not.
Nonetheless, the 1996 Act did require the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) to study description, and in 2000 the agency announced
that it would require the broadcast networks as well as the largest
nonbroadcast networks (generally this means cable networks), to provide
50 hours per quarter of programming with video description. The FCC
believed it had the authority to require what amounts to a “pilot”
effort of this sort. So, in April 2002, the requirement went into
effect, and several networks started airing programs with description.
However, the TV industry asked the courts to overturn the FCC
requirement. Unfortunately, the Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia agreed, and tossed out the requirement.
Since that time, AFB and other advocates have worked to “reinstate”
those minimal requirements, and we were finally successful in the
Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010. So, that is how we
ended up with this small but important step being taken now (as of July
2012) by the broadcast and top nonbroadcast TV networks to provide
approximately four hours per week (50 hours per calendar quarter) of
programs with video description.
So now what?
The two big immediate challenges for TV viewers with vision loss are to
figure out which programs have description and how to set their TV to
receive it. For information about programs, the best source right now is
www.VideoDescription.info <http://www.videodescription.info>
which links to a page at the FCC with lots of resources and lists of
programs that networks have indicated they are planning to provide with
description. As for how to set the TV to get the description track, see
the information we've compiled at
www.AFB.org/VideoDescription <http://www.afb.org/videodescription>
As we learn more, we'll fill in details. And, if the programs you want
aren't described, let the networks know you'd like them to be described.
If you aren't able to receive the description track, let your TV
provider or broadcast station hear from you.
Personally, I’m curious about ABC’s “Modern Family,” and NBC’s “The
Office,” which are now supposed to be described. In fact, I used to
watch “The Office,” but got tired of trying to follow the constant scene
changes and weird switching between monologues and dialogue.
I’m definitely not the best person to tell you to watch more TV, but I
suspect many of you, like most Americans, already watch a decent amount.
I hope you will take a look at some of the programs that are to be
described, and I hope you will let the networks know that you’d like to
see more described programming. And, tell us about your experiences with
description too. That’s something we can all tune into.
You can unsubscribe at any time. To remove your name from this mailing
list, or to find out what other newsletters are available from AFB,
visit http://www.afb.org/myafbnewsletter.aspx.
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