History of Captioning

Closed Captioning was first used on American Television on March 16, 1980 by use of the Telecaption Adaptor, a decoding unit that could be connected to a TV set. According to the National Captioning Institute the ABC Sunday Night Movie; Semi-Tough, the Disney Feature; Son of Flubber on NBC, and Masterpiece Theatre on PBS were the first programs seen with captions that Sunday night. On January 23, 1990 the Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 was passed by Congress. Through this Act the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) gained the power to implement Closed Captioning. From that point on, the Act required all analog television receivers 13 inches and bigger (either sold or manufactured) to have the ability to display closed captioning by July 1, 1993. By July 1, 2006 the FCC had set the same requirements on all digital television receivers.