The Federal Communications Commission announced the establishment of a technical working group to study digital closed captioning and video description issues. The group will focus on issues of accessibility in television programming for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, or have other visual disabilities.

The purpose of the working group will be to conduct an assessment of closed captioning and video description technical issues associated with the switch to digital television (DTV transition), and to recommend to the Commission’s Consumer Advisory Committee (CAC)1 solutions to any technical problems arising with these services in conjunction with the DTV transition.

The first meeting will be held May 18th. For more information, see the press release at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-09-995A1.pdf and from the Coalition of Organizations for Assistive Technology at http://www.coataccess.org/node/3485