Seven leading disability advocates have asked the Federal Communications Commission to set aside a recent move making it easier for non-profit TV broadcasters to avoid providing closed-captioning for the deaf.

The FCC "departed from long practice and improperly established a new class of programming that is exempt from the closed captioning requirements without proper notice and comment," charge the groups in a emergency stay petition filed on October 12th. They include the National Association for the Deaf, the Hearing Loss Association of America, and the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD).

In mid-September the Commission gave closed captioning exemptions to two religious broadcasters. Both groups claimed that providing on-screen video text, which allows people with hearing disabilities to follow television programs, represented an excessive financial hardship.

The FCC granted the waivers, but went further, noting that in future cases if a non-profit demonstrates that it receives no compensation from video program distributors and that "in the absence of an exemption, may terminate or substantially curtail its programming," the FCC will expedite a closed captioning exemption request.

Since then the Commission has been faced with an uproar of protest from accessibility rights organizations. The AAPD quickly released an action alert warning that the ruling creates a new category that will open the door to many more exemptions.

"What the FCC has done is very serious," their statement concluded. "This new interpretation of the rules for asking for an exemption from having to closed caption has far reaching effects that go well beyond the specific TV programming in these two Orders and could extend to any entity, regardless of its resources, if they can make a case that 'we can't afford it' or it ‘might’ shut us down."

The October 12th petition asks the FCC to put aside the ruling pending an application for review which the seven groups filed on that same day.