"I think that the FCC was a little bit surprised at the community's reaction to what just happened," civil rights attorney Karen Peltz Strauss told LLFCC in October. Strauss was commenting on the uproar over the Federal Communications Commission's decision to make it easier for non-profit broadcasters to obtain waivers from closed captioning requirements.

Since then, the controversy has shown no sign of abating.

To recap, on September 12th, the Commission granted two religious broadcasters: "Anglers for Christ Ministries, Inc," and "New Beginnings Ministries," waivers from having to provide closed captioning for their TV programs. Both groups claimed that providing on-screen video text, which allows people with hearing disabilities to follow television programs, represented an excessive financial hardship.

But in these cases the Commissions' ruling 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.

"We will be inclined favorably to grant such a petition because as the petitions of Anglers and New Beginning demonstrate, this confluence of factors strongly suggests that mandated close captioning would pose an undue burden on such a petitioner," the FCC's Memorandum Opinion and Order concluded.

Disability rights groups charged that the ruling facilitated a whole new class of broadcasters exempt from closed captioning requirements, and that the FCC had already recently granted hundreds of exemptions without putting their applications up for public notice. Seven prominent groups applied for a reconsideration and temporary stay of the decision.

In response, National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), a Virginia based trade group, came to the defense of the FCC's move in mid October, calling it a "logical clarification of the 'undue burden' test."

Since then:

• On November 7th, the FCC published a listing of hundreds of organizations that had petitioned for closed captioning exemption on the main page of its Web site for public notice and comment. The notice gave the public 20 days to comment on or reply to the petitions.
• On November 9th, eight advocacy groups for people with hearing disabilities filed a reply to the NRB filing. The groups counter charged that, contrary to NRB's arguments, the "Anglers" decision clarified nothing.
  "Instead, the Bureau improperly created a new class of exempt programming for non-profit organizations," they wrote, "even though the current Commission rules setting forth the exempt classes of programming do not include an exemption for non-profit organizations."
  The groups again called the ruling "unclear and unworkable," particularly language that would permit a waiver if closed captioning interfered with "other activities important to [the non-profit's] mission." Their filing called this language "an obfuscation of the standard" that will lead to many more unnecessary closed captioning exemptions.
  They also argued that NRB filed their opposition to the stay request too late to be considered.
• On November 21st, NRB acknowledged that their opposition was indeed filed a day past the 15 day deadline for response to the disability rights groups application for review, but suggested that the application did not properly serve "New Beginning's Ministries," one of the two groups granted an exemption in the controversial ruling.
• On the same day a representative of the National Association for the Deaf Law and Advocacy Center spoke with an FCC staff member, asking for an extension for public comment on the closed captioning waiver petitions. The rep urged the FCC to make more rigorous its criterion for granting a waiver.
• LLFCC has received reports that the FCC's Consumer Advisory Committee at its November 3rd meeting urged the Agency to reconsider its "Anglers" decision, but we have been unable to verify this information.