The FCC Media Bureau issued an order on April 8, 2026, extending a long-standing waiver regarding the accessibility of non-textual emergency information. The ruling moves the compliance deadline to November 29, 2027, or until the Commission concludes its current rulemaking process. The rule in question requires broadcasters to provide an aural representation of visual, non-textual emergency content—such as weather radar maps or evacuation graphics—on a secondary audio stream.
This extension follows a petition from the NAB, which argued that no viable automated technical solution exists to convert complex graphics into speech in real time. Without the waiver, small-market broadcasters might be forced to stop using helpful visual graphics during emergencies to avoid falling out of compliance with accessibility mandates.
The FCC also announced that its April 30 open meeting will consider a formal proposal to modify the rule. The proposed change would allow stations to meet their obligations by providing a text crawl that conveys the same information as the visual graphic, provided that text is also read aloud on the secondary audio stream. For small-market operators with limited technical staff, this modification offers a more practical path to meeting federal accessibility requirements without investing in expensive, specialized automation software.