Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 104 Part 1.djvu/994

 104 STAT. 960 PUBLIC LAW 101-431—OCT. 15, 1990 Public Law 101-431 101st Congress An Act j,Q require new televisions to have built in decoder circuitry. [S. 1974] Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Television United States of America in Congress assembled. Decoder S"""^ ^*=^ °^ SHORT TITLE ?^S?frJ!^i««= SECTION. 1. This Act may be cited as the "Television Decoder Cx)m m unications -,. ., A_j. »•iAAAM equipment. Circuitry Act of 1990. 47 USC 609 note. FINDINGS 47 USC 303 note. SEC. 2. The Congress finds that— (1) to the fullest extent made possible by technology, deaf and hearing-impaired people should have equal access to the television medium; (2) closed-captioned television transmissions have made it possible for thousands of deaf and hearing-impaired people to gain access to the television medium, thus significantly improving the quality of their lives; (3) closed-captioned television will provide access to information, entertainment, and a greater understanding of our Nation and the world to over 24,000,000 people in the United States who are deaf or hearing-impaired; (4) closed-captioned television will provide benefits for the nearly 38 percent of older Americans who have some loss of hearing; (5) closed-captioned television can assist both hearing and hearing-impaired children with reading and other learning skills, and improve literacy skills among adults; (6) closed-captioned television can assist those among our Nation's large immigrant population who are learning English as a second language with language comprehension; (7) currently, a consumer must buy a TeleCaption decoder and connect the decoder to a television set in order to display the closed-captioned television transmissions; (8) technology is now available to enable that closed-caption decoding capability to be built into new television sets during manufacture at a nominal cost by 1991; and (9) the availability of decoder-equipped television sets will significantly increase the audience that can be served by closedcaptioned television, and such increased market will be an incentive to the television medium to provide more captioned programming. REQUIREMENT FOR CLOSED-CAPTIONING EQUIPMENT SEC. 3. Section 303 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 303) is amended by adding at the end thereof the following:
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