It was in 1969 that closed captioning experiments began taking place in Boston, Mass. These were directed to finding a simple but effective way of providing viewers with the option of seeing a transcript of the program’s audio at the foot of the television screen, for those with hearing impairment. The adjective “closed” meant that the words could only be seen at the discretion of the viewer.

In Canada in 1970, the Canadian Association of the Deaf (CAD) secured funding from the Department of Communications (DOC) to begin a Captioned Films and Telecommunications Program for Canada. An International Conference on Television and the Deaf was hosted by CAD in Washington in 1975. In 1978 the CAD hosted two captioning conferences in Canada, and petitioned the CRTC to direct the CBC to initiate captioning. The CAD was successful in securing the allocation of Line 21 on the television signal to accommodate eventual closed captioning.

March 16th 1980 saw the first captioning of programming on the American networks, through the National Captioning Institute (NCI) in Washington D.C. Some Canadian broadcasters began working with NCI to get the closed captioning material for those American programs to which they held the rights.

In 1981, the Department of Communications and the National Film Board partnered with the CAD to create The Canadian Captioning Development Agency (CCDA), the first and for several years the only such agency in Canada. In the same year the CBC started offering some closed captioned programs, and Littlest Hobo became the first Canadian series to be captioned by CTV.

For some time, until networks and later stations began to handle closed captioning in-house, NCI in Washington and CCDA would be sent tapes programs to be captioned. Live captioning was introduced in Canada with programs like the CTV National News being fed live to CCDA to be captioned and fed back simultaneously to the network for broadcast.

The need for live – sometimes referred to as ‘real time’ – closed captioning called for specials skills. These were found primarily among men and women who had trained as court reporters, many of whom were recruited to work at closed captioning agencies and later for the broadcasters themselves. By the early 1990s, the Canadian Captioning Development Agency had outlived its usefulness and was closed down. By then its work was being handled by independent agencies and in-house. By 1993, most television sets sold in Canada had built-in closed captioning decoders.

Under increased pressure to caption more and more Canadian programming, broadcasters began seeking sponsors specifically to help fund this initiative, and a federally-registered charity named Canada Caption Inc. (CCI) was formed to help attract sponsors. This eventually resulted in the introduction of 10-second billboards stating “Closed Captioning for this program is brought to you by….”

In 1995, following discussion on the subject at one of its hearings, the CRTC issued a Public Notice (1995-48), in which it articulated its policy with respect to Closed Captioning. Requirements for some degree of closed captioning had been included in prior licence renewals, but interveners at the hearings, including the Canadian Association of the Deaf (CAD,) had argued strongly for a substantial increase in the amount of programming being captioned.

The Commission was sympathetic to these arguments, while recognizing that with current technology and logistics it would be unreasonable to require 100% captioning at that stage. The CRTC therefore announced that it expected that 90% of all programming to be captioned by most stations within the next seven years, with earlier requirements in respect of news programming for large and medium sized stations, and it encouraged smaller stations to aim for the same objectives.

In 2002, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) assembled a group of member representatives to create a document titled Closed Captioning Standards and Protocol, an authoritative guide to Canadian English closed captioning for television.

In 2007, under Public Notice 2007-54, the CRTC announced a new policy with respect to closed captioning that would require all Canadian television broadcasters “…..to caption 100% of their programs over the broadcast day, with the exception of advertising and promos”. At the same time, the Commission recognized that the requirement needed to take into account the inevitability of equipment malfunctions, human error, and circumstances where captioning might simply not be available, usually from foreign sources. The new requirements would be imposed for implementation within a given period from each subsequent licence renewal.

Consequent on the CRTC announcement, the CAB confirmed to the CRTC in December 2007 that it would assemble two working groups, one English and one French, to develop an Action Plan for the implementation of the Commission’s new requirements, under the following three headings:

1. Develop universal standards that address captioning quality, including consistency, style and matters raised specifically by the CAD in their intervention, together with any other concerns deemed appropriate to be addressed by the working groups themselves.



2. Develop concrete, workable solutions with respect to other aspects of captioning quality, including the reduction of errors, technical problems, dropped or garbled captioning or captioning that is cut off by commercials or similar concerns.



3. Develop for consideration the differing technological approaches employed by various broadcasters.

The two groups each met several times during 2008, and filed a preliminary 12-page report with the CRTC on December 2nd 2008. A final report was promised for February 3rd, 2009.

On July 21st 2009, the CRTC issued a Notice on Broadcasting and Telecom Regulatory Policy, which addressed unresolved issues related to the accessibility of telecommunications and broadcasting services to persons with disabilities. It included a direction to television broadcasters to improve and control the quality of closed captioning, including in digital formats, and expressed the Commission.s intention to impose conditions of licence in those areas at the broadcasters' next licence renewals.

Regarding the aforementioned Working Groups, the CRTC stated:

"The Commission considers that it is important that the Working Groups continue and that their membership be extended to better reflect the interests of users of captioning and BDUs.

Accordingly, the Commission extends the mandate of the Working Groups and directs them to file the following for approval by the Commission:

Administrative procedures, including:

a breakdown of costs and funding for each group as a means to address the funding of high cost elements of the Working Groups' activities. The report should reflect the fact that not all participants have the same financial resources or are affected equally by the standards developed by the Working Groups.

the means by which meetings are conducted and facilitated, taking into account the Canadian Association of the Deaf's concern that it has been unable to participate as an equal member in the meetings of the English-language Working Group.

A revised membership composition for the Working Groups that includes additional representatives from user groups as well as BDU/satellite relay distribution undertaking (SRDU) representation. The CRTC will continue to participate in the Working Groups.

An action plan with specific timelines regarding each of the deliverables set out in this Regulatory Policy."

Written by Pip Wedge - October, 2009