Final Regulatory Assessment and Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis Final Rule - Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability by Public Accommodations - Movie Theaters; Movie Captioning and Audio Description

This section outlines the estimated number of hardware units and individual devices required for each venue type.  As previously explained in Section 2.3, four types of equipment are necessary to provide closed movie captioning and audio description:

• Captioning Hardware

• Audio Description Hardware

• Captioning Devices

• Audio Description Devices

The final rule’s scoping requirements for captioning and audio description devices are based on industry research and recommendations proposed by NATO and multiple disability rights groups.  Because each movie theater will have to purchase the requisite equipment, all scoping is presented on a per venue type basis.

According to industry research, a single unit of captioning hardware is required for each auditorium within a movie theater (Section 2.3). Therefore, the number of captioning hardware units a movie theater would need to purchase varies depending on the number of auditoriums operated in that movie theater.  For purposes of the cost estimation, the average number of auditoriums per venue type is used to calculate the number of hardware units required per movie theater.²⁰  Table 3-15 presents the average number of auditoriums by venue type and estimates the relevant number of captioning hardware units required by the scoping requirements using the one unit per auditorium assumption.

Unlike closed movie captioning hardware, one unit of audio description hardware per auditorium is not necessary to provide audio description.  For some manufacturers, the captioning hardware includes audio description capabilities.  Other manufacturers require a single audio description programming station, which is sufficient to provide audio description in an entire movie theater establishment, regardless of the number of auditoriums.  Information regarding the characteristics of the captioning and audio description equipment from the primary manufacturers is described in further detail in Section 3.4.2.  For purposes of the cost estimation, the Final RA assumes that one unit of audio description hardware is required per movie theater.  Table 3-16 presents the average number of auditoriums by venue type and estimates the relevant number of audio description hardware units required by the scoping requirements using the one unit per movie theater assumption.

In response to the 2014 NPRM, NATO and four advocacy groups representing persons who are deaf and hard of hearing²¹ submitted a joint comment (Joint Comment), which included a variety of specific recommendations regarding closed movie captioning and the Department’s proposed scoping requirements for captioning devices. The Joint Comment suggested that movie theaters maintain a minimum number of captioning devices based on the number of auditoriums displaying digital movies within a movie theater, or by venue type.  The Department has adopted the minimum captioning device scoping suggested in the Joint Comment, and the Final RA uses these scoping requirements for the estimation of costs.  The minimum number of captioning devices required per venue type is presented in Table 3-17 below.

For audio description devices, NATO in its public comments suggested that movie theaters maintain one audio description device for every two auditoriums, with a minimum of two devices per movie theater.  The Department has adopted the scoping requirements for audio description devices as recommended in NATO’s public comments.  Table 3-18 shows the scoping requirements for audio description devices used in the cost estimation of the final rule.  Because the number of audio description devices per movie theater will vary depending on the number of auditoriums displaying digital movies in the movie theater, the scoping below represents the average number of audio description devices required per movie theater, based on the average number of auditoriums by venue type.