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 2809  Boston  Street 
 Apartment  436 
 Baltimore,  MD  21224 
 March  14,  2000 


 Magalie  Roman  Salas 
 Office  of  the  Secretary 
 Federal  Communicat  ions  Commission 
 445  Twelfth  Street,  S.  W.,  TW-  A325 
 Washington,  D.  C.  20554 


 RE:  COMMENTS  ON  NOTICE  OF  PROPOSED  RULEMAKING 
 IN  THE  MATTER  OF  VIDEO  DESCRIPTION  OF  VIDEO  PROGRAMMING 


 MM  Docket  No.  99-  339 
 Dear  Ms.  Salas: 
 As  a  concerned  citizen  of  the  United  States  who  happens  to  be  blind,  I  welcome  this  opportunity  to 
 express  my  views  on  the  above  Notice  of  Proposed  Rulemaking  (NPRM).  The  NPRM  proposes  to 
 mandate  use  of  audio  description  of  visual  images  by  television  networks  and  stations  using  the 
 Secondary  Audio  Programming  (SAP)  channel.  While  I,  as  a  blind  person,  have  benefited  from  the  use 
 of  audio  description  for  a  few  movies,  and  while  I  believe  that  continued  research  and  development  to 
 improve  this  technology  is  desirable,  I  st  rongly  oppose  the  imposit  ion  of  audio  descript  ion  as  a  federal 
 mandate. 


 To  put  it  anot  her  way,  audio  descript  ion  of  mat  erial  that  is  purely  recreat  ional  in  nat  ure  is  not  all  t  hat 
 essential  to  my  existence  as  a  person  who  happens  to  be  blind.  Of  greater  importance  to  me  is  the 
 abilit  y  t  o  get  at  emergency  news  and  weat  her  informat  ion  that  is  oft  en  scrolled  across  the  television 
 screen  wit  hout  any  corresponding  verbal  informat  ion,  the  abilit  y  to  learn  t  he  ident  it  ies  of  t  he  "t  alking 
 heads"  in  local  and  nat  ional  news  broadcast  s,  and  the  abilit  y  to  know  t  he  vit  al  phone  numbers  t  hat  are 
 displayed  on  the  screen.  The  video  descript  ion  cont  emplat  ed  in  the  above  NPRM  will  not  provide  any 
 meaningful  help  in  this  regard. 


 This  may  lead  you  to  conclude  that  I  favor  a  mandate  for  audio  description  of  essential  and/  or 
 emergency  information.  I  certainly  do  not  favor  a  federal  mandate  for  audio  description  of  material 
 that  is  purely  entertainment.  However,  I  might  favor  an  FCC  mandate  requiring  the  major  networks  to 
 provide  verbal  information  about  critical  data  that,  today,  is  only  available  visually.  However,  that  is  as 
 far  as  I  would  take  it. 


 Again,  thank  you  for  this  opportunity  to  comment  on  the  NPRM  requiring  major  networks  to  include 
 audio  description.  I  oppose  the  NPRM  in  its  present  form. 
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 Yours  sincerely, 
 Curtis  Chong 
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