OTTAWA – The CRTC has approved the mandatory standards for French-language closed captioning submitted by the French-language Closed Captioning Working Group (FL-CCWG).
The closed captioning quality standards are sets of standards that address the quality of closed captioning provided by Canadian television broadcasters. Once approved by the Commission, all TV licensees will be required to adhere to the closed captioning standards through conditions of licence that will be applied at the time of licence renewal or approval of a new licence.
On Thursday, the Commission also directed FL-CCWG to submit an updated version of the standards by January 7, 2012 to reflect the changes identified in the policy, as well as to ensure that the mandatory standards are clearly identified as such. The FL-CCWG is a group comprised of representatives from private and public television broadcasters, distributors, captioning providers and consumer and advocacy groups representing persons who are deaf or hearing impaired.
In addition, the Commission will address at a later date the issues of enforcement, monitoring compliance and whether the mandate of the FL-CCWG should be extended.
