The Federal Communications Commission announced Thursday that the deadline for comment on proposed rules changes regarding closed-captioning of video programming has been extended to Dec. 16. The opportunity for comment had been scheduled to end the day after Thanksgiving.

The National Association of Broadcasters filed a request for extension Tuesday, citing the volume of comments and the need for more time to analyze them for the relevant issues, among them the question of whether stations in smaller markets might do less news programming if they are forced to do real-time captioning, rather than using less expensive, and less accurate, methods and to meet quality standards.

“The Commission does not routinely grant extensions of time,” said the order signed by Monica Desai, chief of the FCC Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau. “However, we agree that an extension will afford parties the necessary time to coordinate and file reply comments that will facilitate the compilation of a more complete record in this proceeding, without causing undue delay to the Commission’s consideration of the issues.