May 2015

The Federal Communications Commission has yet to rule on the National Association of Broadcasters request that the FCC give broadcasters more time to comply with a Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) requirement to convert emergency alert text in now-news programming accessible to the sight-impaired. An FCC spokesperson confirmed May 21 that decision is still pending. Broadcasters have a May 26 deadline to provide aural representations of visual emergency information -- crawls, radar images -- on a second audio stream.

NAB, joined by broadcast engineers, told the FCC broadcasters can't meet that deadline. NAB has asked the FCC for a temporary exemption until November, because it says the software needed to aurally transcribe crawls has not been supplied yet by vendors in some cases; also, they say, more time is needed for testing and shipping. The NAB also wants more time to translate graphics into speech because radar maps and other moving graphic images do not contain text files that can be converted. In other words, “The ability to comply with the requirement,” the association says, “does not exist now.”

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said he thought the FCC's decision, one way or the other, about whether Dish-connected designated entities (DEs) deserved $3 billion in bidding credits (discounts) in the AWS-3 auction would delay the upcoming incentive auction. He was asked whether a decision against Dish and the DE's could mean having to re-auction the spectrum, and thus potentially delay the planned early 2016 broadcast incentive auction.

Chairman Wheeler said he did not think there would be a delay of the incentive auction, saying that the "question that exists" in the AWS-3 auction is the DE discount. "If there is a decision made that that is inappropriate," he said, "the issue is $3 billion more dollars" rather than re-auctioning the spectrum. He later conceded that the ultimate penalty -- some have suggested Dish and the DE's colluded, though Dish and those DE's have said the rules clearly allowed their collaboration -- could be re-auctioning the spectrum, but he said that "the rules as they stand right now are: 'pay three billion dollars more.'"

Ask big names in the sports business what's on their mind, and live streaming by fans is one of the first things they'll mention. Television, with its ever-escalating contracts, increasingly finds itself competing against new technologies such as live-streaming apps Periscope and Meerkat that threaten to disrupt the entire business model. Even Internet giants like Google may be entering the space. (Periscope is owned by Twitter, and CNBC's parent company Comcast is an investor in Meerkat.) Broadcasters, sports executives and athletes the Sports Business Journal's 2015 Sports Business Awards in New York on May 20 were of two minds when asked about fan streaming apps, with the old guard having bigger problems with the technology than the younger generation had.

The Federal Communications Commission adopted rules to ensure individuals who are blind or visually impaired can quickly access critical information shown on television in the event of an emergency. In addition, the FCC seeks comment on other possible accessibility issues facing those who are blind or visually impaired. The new rules adopted required that emergency information be made accessible on a secondary audio stream on tablets, smartphones, laptops, and similar devices when subscription television providers, such as cable and satellite operators, permit consumers to access programming over their networks using an app on these devices.

When emergency information appears on a television screen, it is preceded by three tones. Under previously adopted FCC rules, individuals who are blind or visually impaired soon will be able to switch to a secondary audio stream to hear televised emergency information when they hear the three tones. This action takes this a step further: keeping pace with technological changes and the way consumers enjoy content. Additionally, the Second Report and Order establishes rules requiring that the equipment used to receive and pay back television programming, such as set-top boxes, have a simple and easy to use mechanism to switch from the main program audio to the secondary audio stream to hear audible emergency information.