FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -  June 29, 2000
Contact:  James D. House - MembPubRel@tdi-online.org

On June 15, 2000, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a Memorandum
 Opinion & Order (MO&O) denying the Home Shopping Club’s (HSC) petition for a waiver 
from captioning its programming on The Home Shopping Network, America’s Store and 
the Home Shopping Network en Espanol.  The FCC based its decision mainly on an 
opposition brief filed by TDI.

When learning of this important decision by the FCC, Claude L. Stout, TDI Executive 
Director, paid tribute to the FCC’s steadfast record of commitment and effort to bring about 
universal telecommunications access for Americans with disabilities.  Mr. Stout remarked, 
“TDI joins other national advocacy organizations in applauding the FCC for its decision to 
deny Home Shopping Club’s petition for closed captioning waiver for its slate of TV programs.  
The FCC was fair and unbiased in rendering its decision based on the undue burden criteria, 
as required by law.”

HSC submitted a petition to FCC requesting a waiver of the closed captioning requirements, 
citing undue burden due to the difficulty and expense of providing real-time captioning.  
Section 713 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, regarding Video Programming 
Accessibility, was added to the Act by Section 305 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.  
Section 713 generally requires that video programming be closed captioned, regardless of 
distribution technologies, to ensure that it is accessible to persons with hearing disabilities.  
The FCC rules require that the majority of new programming become captioned over the next 
eight years, and that most old programming become captioned over the next ten years.

In setting up the parameters for video producers and distributors to comply within Section 
76.1(f)(2), the FCC defined "Undue Burden" conditions for an criteria that exempts certain 
programming from the captioning rules if the rules imposes excessive economic hardship.  
To determine the applicability of "Undue Burden" exemptions, the FCC considers the 
following factors: (a) the nature and cost of the closed captions for the programming; (b) the 
impact on the operation of the provider or program owner; (c) the financial resources of the 
provider or program owner; and (d) the type of operations of the provider or program owner.

By analyzing HSC’s petition in light of these four factors, the FCC noted that they did not 
submit a full financial analysis that compared the cost of captioning with full production costs.  
The FCC stressed that the Telecommunications Act is quite clear about how the financial 
resources are applied to captioning.  TDI in its opposition brief pointed out that the HSC could 
seek sponsorships for captioning.  The FCC also disputed HSC’s contention that captioning 
may contain mistakes that would increase their exposure to lawsuits, noting that examples 
of lawsuits from inaccurate captions were absent.  HSC further argued against captioning 
because relevant facts about the product are already on the screen, and the audio banter of its 
hosts duplicates the graphics without adding information that is critical to viewers.  The 
commissioners further concurred with TDI, dismissing the contention that closed captioning 
adds no value to the infomercials, and agrees that that it is not HSC's role to determine whether 
a certain segment of the population has adequate access to certain information.

Using these criteria, the FCC determined that the Home Shopping Club had not met the 
standard required to demonstrate that captioning of its programming would constitute an 
“Undue Burden.”  The FCC stated that HSC could not rely on cost alone as an excuse for 
not providing closed captioning, necessary to make its programming accessible to persons 
with hearing disabilities.

The full text of the MO&O can be found on the Disabilities Rights Office web site at
www.fcc.gov/cib/dro.  The Disabilities Rights Office can be contacted by e-mail at
access@fcc.gov.