WASHINGTON, D.C. — If you’re a broadcast television station in one of 10 Designated Market Areas (DMAs), there’s a new requirement that goes into effect on January 1, 2024, with respect to the FCC’s October 2020 approval of an Audio Description Order, which expanded its rules to smaller markets.
The Commission’s audio description rules require certain television broadcast stations and
multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to provide audio description for a portion of the video programming they televise to consumers. This makes video programming more accessible to individuals who are blind or visually impaired through the insertion of audio narrated descriptions of a television program’s key visual elements into natural pauses between the program’s dialogue.
With the order, a phasing-in of the requirements saw 10 additional DMAs per year need to adhere to the rules.
Now, it is up to those in DMAs 91-100 to abide by the FCC’s audio description rules come 2024.
The impacted markets are:
- El Paso (Las Cruces)
- Paducah, Ky. -Cape Girardeau, Mo.
- Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-Iowa City & Dubuque
- Burlington, Vt.-Plattsburgh, N.Y.
- Baton Rouge
- Jackson, Miss.
- Fort Smith-Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, Ark.
- Boise
- South Bend-Elkhart, Ind.
- Myrtle Beach-Florence, S.C.
The January 1, 2024 deadline also applies to the Chattanooga and Charleston, S.C. DMAs that would have been within the later deadline for DMAs 91 through 100 based on the Nielsen figures as of January 1, 2020, but now fall within the earlier deadline for DMAs 81 through 90 based on the Nielsen figures as of January 1, 2023.
