COR is a coalition of national organizations that are committed to improving the lives of individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. Among other things, COR serves as a bridge among interested organizations, the general public, and the community of people with disabilities on matters concerning deaf and hard of hearing individuals. COR has been an active participant in virtually all of the FCC s earlier proceedings on issues concerning people who are deaf and hard of hearing.
Television programming shapes public opinion and culture in myriad ways.
It is the principal source of news and information and provides hours of entertainment every week to American homes. Through the TV Decoder Circuitry Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress and the Commission have agreed on the necessity for regulations to assure that significant amounts of captioned programming is available and that the video transmission and reception infrastructure and consumer equipment is ready to display it. Now, under provisions of the Telecommunications Act, the Commission is considering a mandate to assure equal access to video programming for people who are blind or visually impaired as well. We know only too well how5 marginalized and excluded one can be when denied communications access. We also remember all too well the days when only one or two hours per week of TV programming was closed captioned, when decoders were expensive and difficult to install, and when captions would often be garbled or disappear or be left out of repeat showings of captioned programs.