The CRTC has approved the mandatory standards for French-language closed captioning set out in the appendix to this regulatory policy. The Commission further directs the French-language Closed Captioning Working Group to submit an updated version of the standards by 7 January 2024 to reflect the changes identified in this policy, as well as to ensure that the mandatory standards are clearly identified as such.
The Commission will address the issues of enforcement, monitoring compliance and whether the mandate of the FL-CCWG should be extended at a later date.
The Commission called for comments on the quality standards for French-language closed captioning proposed by the French-language Closed Captioning Working Group. The Commission received comments from a number of parties and one reply.
The Commission recognizes that the report submitted by the FL-CCWG was a consensus report. As such, the Commission has generally accepted the proposed standards. Specifically, the Commission accepts the FL-CCWG's proposed mandatory standards for the positioning of captions on the screen, the speed of captions and the use of hyphens and chevrons, as set out in the appendix to this policy. However, after examining the public record for this proceeding, the Commission considers that it must address the following issues:
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Should there be a distinction between mandatory standards and best practices?
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What is an appropriate lag time for captioning?
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What is an appropriate accuracy rate?
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What is an appropriate timeframe within which to expect the correction of errors in live programs prior to rebroadcast?
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Should there be a mandatory standard for the captioning of emergency alerts?
The Commission will not be addressing how the mandatory standards will be enforced, how monitoring should take place, who should be responsible for monitoring and whether the mandate of the FL-CCWG should be extended. Rather, the Commission will address these issues at a later date.
The FL-CCWG identified the following areas where it considered mandatory standards could be imposed on broadcasters:
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lag time;
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positioning of captions on screen;
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accuracy rate, including correcting errors in the rebroadcast of live programs;
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speed of captions, including in children's programming;
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emergency alerts; and
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hyphens and chevrons (speaker identification).
The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Pelmorex Media Inc. supported a distinction between best practices and mandatory standards. The Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Syndicat des communications de Radio-Canada and SOVO Technologies Inc., a provider of closed captioning, submitted that all of the proposed standards and best practices should be considered mandatory, with the exception for CUPE with regard to the proposed mandatory standards and best practices relating to emergency alerts, which are discussed later in this policy. The Centre québécois de la déficience auditive (CQDA) submitted that all of the standards should be considered mandatory, but that broadcasters should be provided a level of flexibility during the first half of the new licence term. V Interactions Inc. (V Interactions), however, submitted that all of the standards should be applied as best practices. No parties suggested that any individual best practice would be more appropriately categorized as a mandatory standard.
The Commission considers that mandatory standards, by their very nature, should be achievable, measurable and enforceable and that the mandatory standards proposed by the FL-CCWG meet this criterion, as well as address the main areas of concern of the user-group communities, such as accuracy rate, speed of captions and captions that block other on-screen information. By contrast, best practices are more qualitative. In the Commission's view, the remaining standards categorized by the working group as best practices deal with more stylistic issues. Accordingly, the Commission finds it appropriate to make a distinction between mandatory standards and best practices, as proposed by the FL-CCWG.
Lag time is the term used to identify the delay that occurs between the time a word is heard and the corresponding caption appears on screen. When the lag time is too great, captions are no longer in sync with what is happening on screen, making it extremely difficult to follow the story, identify the speaker or remain engaged in the program. The FL-CCWG proposed the following mandatory standard [translation]:
For live programming, the lag time between the audio and the captions must not exceed five seconds, averaged over the program.
The CQDA supported the proposed mandatory standard for lag time. SOVO also supported the proposed mandatory standard, stating that the five-second lag time could even be shortened for live scripted programming since the script is provided ahead of time. SOVO further submitted that there should be a maximum eight-second lag time for all live programming. Pelmorex, however, submitted that the proposed mandatory standard should apply only to live scripted programming. It argued that a maximum lag time for live unscripted programming, such as interviews from remote locations or fast-paced live reports during severe weather events, should be considered a best practice.
Bell Canada submitted that if the Commission were to impose a mandatory standard, an exception should be made for live sports programming. Specifically, it argued that a standard lag time should be a best practice for live sports programming given the nature of such programming, with its rapid commentaries, the fact that there are several conversations happening at the same time, the volume of foreign proper names and surnames and the different terminologies used for different sports.
APTN submitted that ensuring a lag time of five seconds or less would be challenging for many broadcasters.
The Commission notes that although Bell and Pelmorex raised concerns with respect to the proposed standard lag time, neither party proposed a different standard for Commission consideration. The Commission further notes that SOVO indicated that the five-second standard is reasonable for live unscripted programming and that this is arguably the most difficult type of programming to caption. The Commission also notes that SOVO is a key provider of voice recognition captioning in Quebec and that Bell stated in its submission that SOVO is the company it has engaged to caption live sports on its specialty service Le Réseau des sports.
It is the Commission's view that Pelmorex and Bell have not provided sufficient evidence for the Commission to deviate from the FL-CCWG recommendation. The Commission considers that the averaging of lag time over the length of the entire program provides sufficient flexibility to account for instances where the lag time may be longer due to the nature of the audio being captioned. Further, with respect to SOVO's suggestion to shorten the proposed lag time for scripted programming and establish a maximum eight-second lag time for all live programming in combination with a five-second average for unscripted programming, it is the Commission's view that such an approach is overly complicated. The Commission considers that the working group's proposed single standard for all live programming is clearer.
In light of the above, the Commission approves the mandatory standard proposed by the FL-CCWG. A mandatory standard to this effect is included in the appendix to this policy.