28 CFR Parts 35 and 36, Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability by Public Accommodations - Movie Theaters; Movie Captioning and Audio Description (NPRM)

3.  Benefits—Qualitative Discussion of Benefits

The benefits of this rule are difficult to quantify for multiple reasons.  The Department has not been able to locate robust data on the rate at which persons with disabilities currently go to movies shown in movie theaters.  In addition, as a result of this rule, the following number of persons will change by an unknown amount: (1) the number of persons with disabilities who will newly go to movies, (2) the number of persons with disabilities who will go to movies more often, (3) the number of persons who will go to the movies as part of a larger group that includes a person with a disability, and (4) the number of persons with disabilities who would have gone to the movies anyway but under the rule will have a fuller and more pleasant experience.  In addition, the Department does not know precisely how many movie theaters currently screen movies with closed captioning and audio description, or how many people with hearing or vision disabilities currently have consistent access to movie theaters that provide closed captioning and audio description.  Finally, the Department is not aware of any peer reviewed academic or professional studies that monetize or quantify the societal benefit of providing closed captioning and audio description at movie theaters

The individuals who will directly benefit from this rule are those persons with hearing or vision disabilities who, as a result of this rule, would be able for the first time to attend movies with closed captioning or audio description in theaters across the country on a consistent basis.  Individuals who will indirectly benefit from this rule are the family and friends of persons with hearing and vision disabilities who would be able to share the movie-going experience more fully with their friends or loved ones with hearing and vision disabilities. 

Data on movie-going patterns of persons who are deaf or hard of hearing or are blind or have low vision is very limited, making estimations of demand very difficult.  However, numerous public comments suggest that many persons who are deaf or hard of hearing or are blind or have low vision do not go to the movies at all, or attend movies well below the national average of 4.1 annual admissions per person, because of the lack of auxiliary aids and services that would allow them to understand and enjoy the movie. 

Though we cannot confidently estimate the likely number of people who would directly benefit from this proposed rule, we have reviewed data on the number of people in the United States with hearing and vision disabilities.  The Census Bureau estimates that 3.3 percent of the U.S. population has difficulty seeing, which translates into a little more than eight million individuals in 2010, and a little more than two million of those had “severe” difficulty seeing.⁴³  At the same time, the Census Bureau estimates that 3.1 percent of people had difficulty hearing, which was a little more than 7.5 million individuals in 2010, and approximately one million of them had “severe” difficulty hearing.  Not all of these people would benefit from this proposed rule.  For example, some people’s hearing or vision disability may not be such that they would need closed captioning or audio description.  Some people with hearing or vision disabilities may not use the equipment for a variety of reasons, including finding the equipment uncomfortable to use.  Some people with hearing or vision disabilities may already have consistent access to theaters that screen all their movies with closed captioning and audio description.  And some theaters may not provide closed captioning and audio description for all their movies because it would be an undue burden under the ADA to do so.  Meanwhile, some people with hearing or vision disabilities would not attend public screenings of movies even if theaters provided closed captioning and audio description simple because they do not enjoy going out to the movies—just as is the case among persons without disabilities.⁴⁴

In recent years, a large number of movie theaters have already invested in equipment to provide closed captioning and audio description.  As noted earlier in this NPRM, NATO estimates that 53 percent of digital screens are already captioning and audio description enabled.  However, this does not translate into an estimate that about half (or 53 percent) of persons who are deaf or hard of hearing or are blind or have low vision are now benefiting from captioning or audio description.  There are multiple reasons why, even if we accept this estimate of the current availability of captioning and audio description, that it does not translate into direct benefits for all those who could benefit. Such reasons include the following: (1) only some screens at some theaters may have closed captioning and audio description capabilities and those may not be showing the movie the person wants to see, (2) the theater may not be showing the desired movie with closed captions and audio description on a convenient day or at a convenient time, (3) the theater may be located much farther away from where the person with a disability resides than other, less accessible theaters, which may result in a decision not to go to a movie theater at all, or (4) a person may live in a community that has theaters with closed captioning and audio description capability but may travel (for vacation, to visit relatives, for work, or other reasons) to a community that does not have theaters that are captioning and audio description enabled.

Not only is the estimate of the number of who might directly benefit from the proposed rule uncertain, but the individual benefits are not uniform because persons who are deaf or hard of hearing or are blind or have low vision are likely to benefit from this proposed rule in different ways and realize benefits in different amounts.  The type and amount of benefits can depend on personal circumstances and preferences, as well as proximity to movie theaters that otherwise would not offer captioning or audio description but for this proposed rule.  Some persons with vision and hearing disabilities have effectively been precluded from going to movies at theaters because the only theaters available to them did not offer closed captioning or audio description, offered open captioning but only at inconvenient times (such as the middle of the day during the week), or offered captioning or audio description for only a few films and not for every screening of those films.  For these persons, the primary benefit will be the ability to see movies when released in movie theaters along with other movie patrons that they otherwise would not have had the opportunity to do.  They will have the value of that movie-going experience, as well as the opportunity to discuss the film socially at the same time as the rest of the movie-viewing public.  The amount of benefit experienced by a person with a vision or hearing disability who previously had no access to a theater that provided closed captioning or audio description at all its screenings will be different than the amount experienced by a person with a hearing or vision disability who previously had access to a theater that did consistently provide closed captioning and audio description at its screenings.  In addition, the amount of benefit from this rule experienced by a person who cannot follow a movie at all without the assistance of closed captioning is likely to be greater than the amount of benefit experienced by a person who can follow parts of a movie without the assistance of closed captioning. 

In addition to the direct beneficiaries of the proposed rule discussed above, others may be indirect beneficiaries of this rule.  Family and friends of persons with these disabilities who wish to go to the movies all together as a shared social experience will now have greater opportunities to do so.  More adults who visit elderly parents with hearing or sight limitations would presumably be able to take their parents on outings and enjoy a movie at a theater together, sharing the experience as they may have in the past.

The Department received numerous comments from individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing or blind or have low vision in response to its 2010 Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Movie Captioning and Video Description in Movie Theaters describing how they were unable to take part in the movie-going experience with their friends and family because of the unavailability of captioning or audio description.  Many individuals felt that this not only affected their ability to socialize and fully take part in family outings, but also deprived them of the opportunity to meaningfully engage in the discourse that often surrounds movie attendance.  Parents with disabilities also complained that they could not answer their children’s questions about a movie they saw together because the parents did not understand what had happened in the movie.

Of perhaps greater significance to the discussion of the benefits of this rule, however, are issues relating to fairness, equity, and equal access, all of which are extremely difficult to monetize, and the Department has not been able to robustly quantify and place a dollar value on those benefits.  Regardless, the Department believes the non-quantifiable benefits justify the costs of requiring captioning and audio description at movie theaters nationwide. 

Annualized Costs and Benefits of Proposed Rule (2015 Dollars, 15-year Time Horizon)

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Question 17: The Department invites comment on methods and data for monetizing or quantifying the societal benefits of the proposed regulation, including benefits to persons who are deaf or hard of hearing or blind or have low vision, as well as to other members of the movie-going public or other entities.  For example, the Department invites comments on methods and data for estimating the number of people with vision or hearing disabilities who would benefit from this rule, and addressing the challenges noted above in developing such an estimate, as well as comments on methods and data that could be used to estimate the value of the different types of benefits noted above.  The Department also invites comments on its qualitative discussion of the benefits of this rule, which include equity, human dignity, and fairness.

43. The Census defines “[d]ifficulty seeing” as “experiencing blindness or having difficulty seeing words and letters in ordinary newsprint, even when wearing glasses or contact lenses (if normally worn).”  U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce, P70-131, Americans with Disabilities: 2010 Household Economic Studies at 8 (2012), available at http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p70-131.pdf (last visited July 14, 2014).  It defines “[d]ifficulty hearing” as “experiencing deafness or having difficulty hearing a normal conversation, even when wearing a hearing aid.”  Id.

44. In 2012, a little more than two thirds (68 percent) of the U.S. and Canadian population over two years old went to a movie at a movie theater at least once that year.  See Motion Picture Association of America, Theatrical Market Statistics at 11 (2012), available at http://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/2012-Theatrical-Market-Statistics-Report.pdf (last visited July 14, 2014).