Closed captioning meaning

In legal practice, closed captioning refers to on‑screen text of spoken dialogue and significant audio information (such as speaker identification and sound effects) that viewers can switch on or off to make audiovisual content accessible to deaf and hard‑of‑hearing users. Across England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland, the term is descriptive; legislation and regulators generally use “subtitling” or “subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH)” rather than “closed captioning”. It commonly appears in broadcasting and streaming compliance, production and distribution contracts (caption deliverables and quality), platform terms, digital accessibility policies, and in meeting reasonable adjustments/accommodations duties. UK: Ofcom’s Code on Television Access Services (under the Communications Act 2003) sets subtitling quotas and quality standards for licensed broadcasters, with separate accessibility rules for on‑demand programme services. Northern Ireland follows the UK regime. Ireland: the Broadcasting Act 2009 and Access Rules issued by Coimisiún na Meán require subtitling for broadcasters. Public sector bodies must generally provide captions for pre‑recorded video on websites and mobile apps under the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (UK) and equivalent Irish regulations implementing the EU directive. Closed captions are not displayed unless enabled; while early systems needed a...