The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Wednesday eliminated a requirement that forces public access television stations to register with the agency and provide ongoing reports about their compliance with closed captioning requirements.
The move is part of the agency’s ongoing “Delete, Delete, Delete” efforts promoted by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, with the goal of winding down outdated and onerous rules in favor of a more-streamlined approach to regulation of covered entities, including cable TV operators.
The rules eliminated this week largely impact the producers of channels set aside on local cable TV systems for public, educational and government (PEG) programming. Cable TV operators are required to provide a handful of channel slots for PEG programming as a condition of their local franchise agreements.
In its order adopted Wednesday, the FCC said PEG programming providers are not required to certify their compliance with closed captioning laws if they are otherwise exempt from making subtitles available through their programming.
The FCC adopted a similar exemption for programmers whose content is carried on non-broadcast networks distributed by cable operators or other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). In those cases, individual programmers will not have to certify compliance if the non-broadcast network itself certifies that it is exempt or that all programming in its linear lineup is either captioned or exempt.
Once the amended rules take effect, cable operators and other video programming distributors will also be relieved of the obligation to use “best efforts” to obtain caption quality certifications from video programmers.
The FCC said the changes do not alter substantive closed captioning requirements: Programming that must be captioned will still need to comply with federal captioning rules, while exempt programming will remain exempt from its rules.
The Commission estimated the changes will save about 290,000 programmers roughly 30 minutes of annual filing time each, resulting in $2.43 million in gross annual savings. After accounting for new filings by about 1,700 PEG channel administrators, the FCC estimated net annual savings of about $2.41 million.
The order released this week stems from rules that were first adopted by the FCC in 2016, during President Donald Trump’s first term in office. Carr said the agency was now acting on decade-old concerns by stakeholders who argued that most PEG channels are overseen by volunteer boards who shouldn’t be burdened with onerous paperwork related to closed captioning and other matters.
“At the time, they raised concerns that requiring volunteers and community groups — such as Cub Scouts or gospel choirs — that were exempt from captioning rules to comply with those underlying obligations was both burdensome and needless,” Carr said.
The issue was revived last year when Carr announced his Delete, Delete, Delete effort. The first round of de-regulation occurred in March 2025 and has continued since then.
“We have voted to eliminate these unnecessarily duplicative requirements, saving hundreds of thousands of programmers a total of nearly $2.5 million annually in needless regulatory costs,” Carr said. “We’ve concluded from the record that this action would have no negative impact on captioning availability or quality.”
The new rule changes adopted on Wednesday will take effect at the end of September.
