Closed Captioning Takes
Firmer Ground

• Early 1980s – network captioning commitments wavering due to slow growth of decoder purchases

• 1982 – Real time captioning invented

• 1988 – Toward Equality – Commission on Education of the Deaf recommendations (<200,000 decoders sold)

  • • Limited programming choices: Few cable or daytime programs captioned

    • Decoders expensive, stigmatizing, complicated

• 1990 – Television Decoder Circuitry Act – requires captioning decoder chip in all TVs with screens greater than 13 inches after 1993