~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The
Weather Channel began closed captioning in a test mode on Monday,
December 27th, as the first step in a year-long progression that will
eventually result in 20 hours of closed captioning daily on the
all-weather network. The National Captioning Institute (NCI) has
been working with TWC to establish a system for providing the service; a
test of the system was successfully completed on December 16th.
Starting
January 1, The Weather Channel will caption five hours of programming:
the 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. time period and the 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. prime viewing time. In June, the amount of closed captioning
on TWC will double with expanded hours of captioning from 5 a.m. to 10
a.m. and 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Next January, The Weather Channel will
establish a regular schedule of
closed captioning for 20 hours of its programming day.
The
Weather Channel, based in Atlanta, is the nation's preeminent source of
weather information. The only national 24-hour weather network, The
Weather Channel is seen in more than 74 million U.S. homes with another
4.5 million households subscribed in Latin America. The Weather Channel
Web site, weather.com, is the leading online weather provider, averaging
over 130 million page views per month. The funding for closed captioning
is made possible in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of
Education.
(Press
Release by The Weather Channel, Thanks to Rob DeBeck)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 2001
Claude R. Marx of the Associated Press recently authored an article
regarding the growing shortage of closed captioners. As federal law
requires larger percentages of television programming to be captioned,
the need will increase. Yet schools are producing only half the number
of people required to meet current demand.
To help alleviate this shortage, Congress is considering legislation
to provide $100 million over the next five years to expand training
programs and recruit students. There are currently about eighty
institutions that train students to become closed captioners. Of these,
around twenty institutions throughout the country would receive funding
under the proposed bill.
Approximately 350 captioners working for 90 companies currently
provide captioning services. The required skills are similar to those of
court reporters, but closed captioning requirements are higher, because
the output is transmitted in real time; there is minimal opportunity to
correct mistakes, as there is in court reporting.
For additional information, please point your browser to:
National Captioning Institute (http://www.ncicap.org)
National Court Reporters Association (http://www.ncraonline.org)
Editor: January 1, 2004 was the most recent date on which television
captioning requirements increased. Here's the scoop from NVRC News.
Starting today, January 1, 2004, 75% of all English language programs
prepared or formatted for display on television must be captioned every
quarter of the year. This translates to 1,350 hours of programming per
channel per quarter, an increase of 450 hours per quarter over the
requirement in 2003. In two more years, on January 1, 2006, the
requirement increases to 100%.
If you're doing the math, you have already figured out that the
numbers don't quite add up. That's because some programs that are
repeats of programs shown prior to 1998 (or July 1, 2002 for digital TV
programs). These repeats have a different requirement; only 30% are
required to be captioned per channel per quarter until January 1, 2008
when the rule changes to 75% per channel per quarter.
Spanish language programs are being given until 2010 to be fully
captioned; as of today only 50% of the programs must be captioned; for
Spanish language repeats, the requirement is 30%.
Other programs that are exempt from the regulations are:
- most programs shown between 2-6 am
- locally produced and distributed non-news programs with no repeat
value (e.g. parades and school sports)
- commercials of less than 5 minutes
- programs in languages other than English and Spanish
- programs produced by local public TV stations for use in grades K-12
and postsecondary schools for distribution to individual education
institutions
- programs shown on new networks for the first 4 years of their
operations
- public service or promotional announcements shorter than 10 minutes,
unless they are federally funded or produced
- programs by providers with annual gross revenues of less than $3
million (but if they show video programs that are already captioned,
they must show them with the captions)
The FCC has also received a number of petitions in the past two years
from program providers that request an exemption from the captioning
requirement due to high cost. The FCC has not yet ruled on most of them;
however they have turned down previous requests from cable channels such
as the Home Shopping Network.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February
2006
Ever wonder
where the captioning on your TV's mute setting comes from? Doesn't it
seem remarkable that live news and sports events can be captioned even
as the action happens? Well, even if you've never thought about it, we
have. And we found out the information for you. According to Time Warner
Cable's Government Relations and Public Affairs Vice President Peter
Taubkin, all closed-captioning comes directly from the networks
themselves. "Closed-captioning is hidden within the signal we get
from the programmers. It is embedded in something called the line 21
vertical blanking interval, and basically it comes through on the signal
sent from the network or program. It is not something the cable operator
originates," Taubkin said. Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
March
2006
Smartly-dressed
Court TV anchors hosted live coverage of a Vermont murder trial last
week. For viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, however, the real
star of the national cable television show was Karla Ray. She wore jeans
and didn't leave her Des Moines home. Ray, 31, never appeared on screen.
She was working in a home office in her basement, typing the
closed-captioning for the live program. She translated the anchors'
commentary and the testimony. The words crawl across the screen for the
hearing impaired and viewers who are helped by seeing spoken words in
print. Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November
2006
This
time of year it's hard to flip on the TV without getting bombarded by
political ads. At the rate some of these ads are blazing up the
airwaves, it can be a downright scary time when it comes to sorting it
all out. This is especially true for voters who are deaf or hard of
hearing -- when ads don't include closed captioning. "I don't
understand why they don't include closed captioning on it, " said
Ron, a deaf voter who plans to vote. "Perry as Governor knows the
re's a large deaf contingent here in Austin and his ads should be closed
captioned, and he knows that." But 'knows that' and 'does that' --
as CBS 42's Leslie Coons found out -- are 2 very different things. Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Editor: Here's a short comment
from NVRC News about the FCC's lack of action on captioning issues. You're
welcome to share this information, but please be sure to credit NVRC.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On July 23, 2004,
Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc. (TDI) filed a
Petition for Rulemaking on closed captioning of TV programs with the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Co-signers with TDI were the
Association of Late-Deafened Adults, Hearing Loss Association of America,
National Association of the Deaf, and the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Consumer Advocacy Network.
Soon we will hit the third
anniversary of this filing, and we have yet to see any action on the list
of concerns detailed in this petition.
The petition requested that the
FCC:
- Take steps to ensure that TV
captioning requirements are being met.
- Create a database with
updated contact information so consumers will know who to contact with
their complaints.
- Create a captioning complaint
form.
- Set reporting requirements
for compliance with the law and conduct compliance audits.
- Revise the complaint rules to
require responses to consumer complaints within 30 days.
- Establish fines and penalties
for not complying with the captioning rules.
- Require continuous monitoring
of captioning to ensure that problems are discovered and fixed
immediately.
- Require that, to meet the
definition of 'captioned' under the current rules, a program meet
standards for completeness, accuracy, readability, and synchroncity with
the audio portion of the program.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
October 2007
VITAC, which provides
captions for the Discovery Networks, some NFL games and Headline News,
employs about 100 captioners, including Laura Low of Niles. Low, who
worked as a court stenographer for 20 years, has been a real-time
captioner since 2002. Real-time captioners use a computerized system based
on stenographic shorthand. Words are formed by depressing a certain
combination of the steno machine's 22 keys through a computer program and
a phone line to provide information for the millions of viewers who may be
watching. . . . Low receives a direct audio feed that gives her a
four-second jump to turn dialogue into written words. Like most real-time
captioners, she is required to have a 98 percent accuracy rate at a
remarkable speed of 240 words a minute."People don't understand there are
people in the background typing in these captions," says Jay Feinberg of
the National Captioning Institute. "Most people feel it's something their
television does." There are an estimated 400 captioners nationwide, but
Feinberg says that's not enough to meet the growing demand.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February 2008
Super Bowl commercials seem to receive more hype
than the game. The commercials spots for Super Bowl XLII sold out in
record time as advertisers vie for the highly sought-after opportunity to
connect with the 97.5 million viewers who tune-in to watch the game and,
perhaps with just as much draw, the Super Bowl Ads. Marketing companies
continually attempt to meet rising viewer expectations when producing
their spots. Millions of dollars are spent by companies promoting their
products. This year's advertisers paid an average of 2.7 million dollars
(and as much as 3 million dollars) to secure a 30-second commercial during
the game. The exposure they receive, and the money they make, is
tremendous.Each year Captions.Com monitors the commercials during the game
to see which are captioned for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. We then
display those who captioned and those who did not.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February 2008
The gym I work out at has five television sets in
the cardio room. I noticed that when I went to work out, sometimes the
closed captions would be displayed on one set, but not all five sets. And
sometimes the closed captions wouldn't be turned on at all. For the past
few weeks, the captions have been completely off. When I went to talk to
the employees about this, they all claimed they couldn't do anything to
the TV's because only a manager has the remote and the managers are never
there when I am (I go around 6 PM) so I couldn't ask them directly. The
employees kept claiming that they had left notes for the managers, but the
captions still did not come on. Since I can't listen to music, I was
getting pretty bored while I worked out on the elliptical trainer.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2008
Louis Schwarz, who lives part time in The
Villages, would really love to get the scoop from the developer's
television station about all the fun stuff going on in the massive
retirement community of nearly 70,000 people. The station claims in
advertisements to supply 100 percent of all the local news, weather,
sports, club listings, lifestyle stories, weather radar, consumer alerts,
medical news, government information and storm coverage that Villages
residents need. But Schwarz can't get any of it. He's deaf, and the
station doesn't offer closed captioning, though it is required by federal
regulations to do so. Schwarz, who has a financial-management firm based
in suburban Washington, D.C., asked station management why VNN lacked
captioning and was told the station didn't fall under rules requiring it.
Schwarz fired back this reply: Prove it. About three weeks later, VNN
filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission asking for an
exemption.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2008
Commercial television networks face the
possibility of potentially embarrassing discrimination lawsuits by the
deaf after failing to renew an agreement that covers the captioning of
programs. Under a five-year deal signed with the Human Rights and Equal
Opportunity Commission in 2003, the networks committed to increase the
captioning of their content to 70per cent in exchange for an exemption
from claims of discrimination. The agreement, which runs out on Wednesday,
included a promise to begin negotiations for a new exemption beyond 2008,
which did not occur. The networks have lodged a request for an interim
six-month exemption to allow time for a federal government review of
captioning to finish. Until that application is ruled on, an opportunity
exists for deaf people to complain under the Disability Discrimination Act
about any program not being captioned. That could ultimately lead to a
Federal Court order for the station to caption the program, and for
damages, as well as adverse publicity.
Full Story
