Summary
The Justice Department's rule adding captioning and audio description duties for US cinemas to the ADA Title III regulation, with its account of how these sit beside the existing assistive listening rules and of the comments it received.
Key findings
- States that the rule's requirements are in addition to a movie theater's existing obligation to provide assistive listening systems and receivers under sections 219 and 706 of the 2010 ADA Standards.
- Says assistive listening receivers are effective for people who are hard of hearing and who only require sound amplification, but do not provide effective communication for people who are deaf or for whom amplification is insufficient; for them the rule requires closed captioning.
- Requires at least one audio description device for every two auditoriums showing digital movies, and no fewer than two per theater; a theater may meet this with the assistive listening receivers it already has under Table 219.3 "if those receivers have a minimum of two channels available for sound transmission to patrons".
- Reports that the Department had expected many theaters to use multi-channel assistive listening receivers, so that most would need no extra devices; a couple of theaters said they had dual-channel receivers, while a trade association said many theaters still rely on single-channel headsets. The Department adds that it does not intend the provision to discourage theaters from using induction loop systems for sound amplification with a different system for audio description.
- Describes audio description as recorded narration carried on the audio channels of the digital cinema package and delivered from a server via infrared, FM or Wi-Fi to headsets at patrons' seats.
- Requires at least one employee on location whenever captioned or described digital movies are shown who can quickly locate, activate and operate the equipment, address problems with it and explain its use to patrons. Commenters reported visits when no staff knew where the captioning devices were kept or how to turn on captioning or audio description.
- Reports, from comments, that a trade association's member companies had signed out at most 1 to 4 audio description devices at any time and never had more requests than devices, and that device data from five cinema companies, offered by the theater owners' association (NATO), showed that demand for captioning devices rarely, if ever, exceeded supply.
- Requires captioning devices by number of auditoriums showing digital movies (4 for one auditorium, 6 for 2-7, 8 for 8-15 and 12 for 16 or more). The rule took effect on 17 January 2017, with equipment required in existing digital auditoriums by 2 June 2018; it defers any requirement for auditoriums that show only analog film.
- The preamble (section 36.303(g)(4)) states the Department's "belief that most movie theaters utilize multi-channel headsets", and asks that new devices be compatible with the theater's audio description and assistive listening systems.
Limits
A rule on captioning and audio description: it changes no assistive listening requirement, and its statements about receivers, loops and staff come from the preamble and from comments, not from data the Department collected. The usage figures are commenters' own and concern captioning and audio description devices, not assistive listening receivers. The text was read in the Federal Register's HTML edition on GovInfo.
Read the original
www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2016-12-02/html/2016-28644.htm
Cited in
Cite this source
US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability by Public Accommodations: Movie Theaters; Movie Captioning and Audio Description (final rule). Federal Register 81(232), pp. 87348-87387 (GovInfo). 2 December 2016. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2016-12-02/html/2016-28644.htm (accessed 9 October 2026).
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