US government considers updating cinema access regulations

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Friday, 19 November 2010 13:38pm

The US Department of Justice is considering revising its regulations implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) with regard to access in cinemas for the Deaf and hearing impaired, and the blind and vision impaired. These revisions could potentially have a huge impact on the levels of captioning and audio description (AD) in American cinemas.

The department has issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) which outlines several proposals that it is considering. Among these is a regulation containing a sliding compliance scale whereby the percentage of captioned and audio described screenings in cinemas rises from 10% in the first year of implementation to 50% in the fifth year.

Other issues canvassed in the ANPRM include the appropriate means for calculating percentages of captioned and audio described movies; when captioning and AD should commence (e.g. on the first day of a movie’s release); the progress American cinemas are making in moving to digital technologies; and the technologies currently available for delivering captions and AD in cinemas.

The full text of the ANPRM can be found on the Department of Justice website.


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Tags: Cinema