FCC broadcast
captions & audio description,
in plain language.

Short answer: if you are a TV broadcast station, an MVPD (cable, satellite, telco-TV), or any distributor of video programming for residential reception, FCC captioning rules apply to almost everything you air. Quality standards are at 47 CFR § 79.1. Audio description rules at 47 CFR § 79.3 cover top-4-network affiliates in the top 110 DMAs and grow each year.

The FCC's broadcast-captioning regime has been in force in some form since 1996 and at full coverage since 2006. The current shape was set by the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) and a series of FCC reports and orders that adopted the now-standard quality pillars. Audio description (FCC still uses the older term "video description" interchangeably) followed a longer path and only reached its current 110-DMA footprint on 1 January 2025.

Who has to caption under FCC rules?

Every "video programming distributor" — meaning every TV broadcast station licensed by the FCC, every cable system, every direct-broadcast-satellite operator, and every other distributor of video programming for residential reception. The legal definition is at 47 CFR § 79.1(a)(2).

"Video programming" itself is defined narrowly. § 79.1(a)(1) covers programming "comparable to programming on broadcast TV" — excluding advertisements of 5 minutes or less. A standard :30 or :60 spot sits outside the rule's definition. Long-form commercials and infomercials over five minutes are covered. Captions on short-form ads still get added by industry practice (network ad acceptance policies require it when ads run in captioned programming), but that is not FCC mandate.

What are the four FCC quality pillars?

Captioning has to be accurate, synchronous, complete, and appropriately placed. That is the entire quality standard. The detail is in 47 CFR § 79.1(j)(2).

The pillars are qualitative. The FCC does not mandate a maximum reading speed or a maximum line length — though industry conventions (~32 char/line, ~17 cps) come from CEA-608 and Netflix style guides, not from the FCC. What gets cited in enforcement actions is the pillars.

Which programming is actually exempt?

A few categories, listed at § 79.1(d). Most are narrower than they sound.

PSAs and promos of 10 minutes or less are exempt under § 79.1(d)(7). Programming aired between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. local time is exempt under § 79.1(d)(8). New networks (in operation under four years) and small distributors (annual gross revenues under $3M) get exemptions, though the small-revenue exemption is paired with a 2% safe-harbor under § 79.1(d) — if a covered entity spends at least 2% of gross revenues on captioning, it is deemed compliant.

Commercials of 5 minutes or less sit outside the definition of video programming in § 79.1(a)(1), so they are not covered. Long-form ads (over 5 minutes) and infomercials are covered like regular programming. Locally-produced non-news programming with no repeat value is exempt. Programming the distributor has no editorial control over — must-carry, leased access, candidate access — is exempt from the obligation to caption, though the rule still requires pass-through of any captions the content arrives with.

What does the FCC's audio description rule require?

Top-4-network-affiliated commercial stations (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC) in the top 110 DMAs must air 87.5 hours of described programming per quarter: 50 hours in prime time or children's programming, plus 37.5 hours between 6 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. local time. The detail is at 47 CFR § 79.3(b).

MVPD systems with 50,000 or more subscribers must carry audio description on the top 5 national non-broadcast networks, which the FCC publishes on a multi-year cycle. For the period 1 July 2024 through 1 July 2027 the top five are HGTV, Hallmark, TLC, TNT, and TBS (TNT and TBS operate under limited waivers that expire 30 June 2027).

Phased expansion under § 79.3(b)(6) adds 10 DMAs per year through 1 January 2035, when audio description rules will cover all 210 DMAs in the United States. As of 1 January 2025 the rules cover DMAs 1–110; on 1 January 2026 they extend to DMAs 111–120.

What about online video and streaming?

Captioning of online video is governed by a separate rule, 47 CFR § 79.4. It applies to full-length video programming previously shown on US TV with captions: that programming must carry captions when distributed via internet protocol (IP). Compliance deadlines have been in force since 2012–2013.

§ 79.4(c)(2)(iii) requires the online captions to be "at least the same quality" as the captions used for the original TV broadcast. That is the door enforcement actions have come through. Audio description on IP-delivered programming is not directly mandated by § 79.4; pass-through obligations under § 79.3 handle some of the gap, but a streaming-only service without a TV-broadcast nexus is not on the hook for AD under FCC rules.

A common confusion worth clearing: § 79.105 is an apparatus rule. It requires consumer playback devices (TVs, set-top boxes, decoders) to decode the secondary audio stream so AD can reach viewers. It is not a programming obligation, and it is not where the AD-content rule lives. That is § 79.3.

What does FCC caption enforcement actually look like?

Enforcement happens when a consumer complaint or a sweep audit catches a violation. Penalties range from low-five-figure fines for small violations to seven-figure consent decrees for large IP-captioning failures. Two recent cases set the scale.

Pluto TV (March 2024) — ViacomCBS subsidiary Pluto TV paid a $3.5 million civil penalty under a consent decree for IP-closed-captioning violations under § 79.4. That number is now the reference point for what a serious online-captioning failure costs.

Maine LPTV licensee (March 2024) — a low-power TV station was fined $2,500 for failing to pass through captions for eight months. The size of that fine is the floor; what matters is that enforcement happens at the small-station level too, not just the streaming-platform level.

Three things to keep on your station-compliance checklist

1. Map your air schedule against the four quality pillars. Caption files arrive from vendors and from sister networks. Spot-check accuracy and placement against the actual program output, not the file in isolation. Mis-positioned captions blocking lower-third graphics are the most common § 79.1(j)(2) placement failure cited in complaints.
2. Verify the audio description quota against the rolling 87.5-hour ledger. Top-4 affiliates in DMAs 1–110 must hit 87.5 hours per calendar quarter. The compliance system runs on the calendar, not on rolling 90-day windows; build the quarterly check into the traffic system rather than into a year-end audit.
3. If you stream IP, do not assume the TV captions translate. § 79.4(c)(2)(iii) requires "at least the same quality" online as on TV. Most enforcement actions land on the IP side, where the file conversion pipeline introduces sync errors that the TV-side broadcast pipeline did not have. Test a sample of live-to-VOD captions every quarter.

Editor's note. Prepared by The Slate, Editorial. Published 11 May 2026. Reflects 47 CFR Part 79 current as of writing, the FCC's December 2024 announcement extending audio description to DMAs 101–110 effective 1 January 2025, and the January 2026 expansion to DMAs 111–120. Not legal advice. Consult FCC counsel for station-specific obligations.