North America
Hearing impaired Canadians and Americans have the greatest choice in closed captioned programming.
Canada is leading the world in closed captioning of TV programmes, and not just because the Canadians have set up some of the strongest requirements in the world for closed captioning on Canadian TV. Closed captioning is available on dozens and dozens of Canadian TV channels, and the Canadian viewers can watch dozens of closed captioned American channels, as well. All in all, 500 channels are available on digital cable boxes, with closed captioning to some extent on almost all of them.
Regulations for Canadian TV were set up by the Canadian Radio-Television Commission, CRTC, in 1995 with the aim to make the TV broadcasts accessible to the deaf and hearing-impaired viewers. Since 2002, the largest networks have been required to provide closed captioning of all newscasts and 90% of all other programming.
Americans can watch closed captioned TV on almost all their hundreds of channels, and more and more do so. Closed captioning of government produced broadcasts were mandated in the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, in 1990, and rules governing the closed captioning of all other programming were set up in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. From 2002, TV broadcasters were required to provide closed captioning of a minimum of 50% of their programming. From 2006, all new programming, with few exceptions, and 75% of old shows must provide captioning.
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