Bill > SB537

This bill, titled the Creating Closed Captioning Act, mandates that public places such as healthcare facilities, restaurants, sports bars, entertainment venues, colleges, universities, and government agencies must ensure that at least half of the televisions available for public use have their closed captioning feature activated at all times. Closed captioning is defined as a text display of the audio content of a television program, and a closed-captioning television receiver is any device capable of displaying this feature. The bill also requires these establishments to make reasonable efforts to prevent the public from deactivating the captioning and to distribute televisions with enabled captioning so they are within reasonable viewing distance for patrons. An exception is provided if no televisions are available in a public area, or if the only available television is not equipped with closed captioning.

Government Affairs

http://www.wvlegislature.gov/Bill_Status/Bills_history.cfm?input=537&year=2026&sessiontype=RS&btype=bill