- Thanks to Facebook friends
The 2012 VRID Biannual Conference will be held at the Sheraton Roanoke Airport Hotel and Conference Center on June 22-24, 2012. Save the dates!
Around 80 religious programmers have filed for new financial-hardship exemptions from closed-captioning rules. The Federal Communications Commission changed the qualifications for exemptions last October, and notified 590 programmers they would have to file new petitions for exemptions granted under rules established in 2006. The deadline for those petitions was last Wednesday. Those who failed to petition the FCC for a new exemption had to start providing closed captions by the next day, Thursday, Jan. 19.
Previously, closed-captioning exemptions were based on the Anglers Order, which arose from a petition filed by “The Christian Angler Outdoors Television Show.” The Anglers order granted exemptions based on the “noncommercial nature and lack of remunerative value” of the programming. Anglers, and another petitioner, New Beginning, received permanent exemptions, while another 300 programmers were granted a blanket exemption based on the Angler criteria. Advocacy groups for the deaf and hard-of-hearing pushed and subsequently won a review the Anglers order.
The commission’s October ruling said it should have considered “all of the petitioners’ available resources…. not just the resources allocated for the programs for which the exemptions were sought.” It rescinded the permanent exemptions and required the rest to demonstrate financial hardship.
The new petitions called for documentation of finances, the cost and nature of close-captioning the programming in question, the impact on the organization, its financial resources and what it’s done to raise money or obtain assistance for closed captioning. The FCC said it would dismiss any petitions that failed to provide the required information.
The majority of the 80 or so petitions accepted for consideration were from religious programmers, including Cross TV in Boca Raton, Fla., which has three paid employees and ran at a loss the last two years. Founder Mark Kielar said closed-captioning would cost the organization around $183,000 a year and lead to an annual deficit “too staggeringly high to even supplement,” forcing the programmer to shut down.
Pastor Tom Lowry of illustrates a similar circumstance for the Curtis Baptist Church in Augusta, Ga. Local ABC affiliate, WJBF-TV carries the 11 a.m. Sunday church service on a delay. The church pays what he describes as a “good rate” for air time, but that WJBF “is unable to provide closed captioning services for us.” He said CC quotes came in from $350 to $500 an hour. “This would increased our per-week cost by 45 to 64 percent,” he said.
The folks at the Dilworth Church of Christ in Jasper, Ala., are in arrears with Birmingham CBS affiliate WIAT-42 to the tune of $4,590 for “Seeking the Lost.” The church demonstrated a bank balance of $2,161.26 as of Dec. 28, 2011.
Under the commission’s revised criteria, exemptions will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. It will consider the duration of each exemption likewise.
“In this regard, the commission recognized that ‘changes in technology, the economics of captioning or the financial resources of a video programming provider may affect the justification of an undue burden exemption’ over time,” the FCC October order stated.
Written by Deborah D. Adams, TVTechnology.com, 1/25/12, http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/churches-file-for-new-closed-caption-exemptions/211511.
- Thanks to NVRC news, 1/25/12 and BE.
Jan 262012
The “Lipreading Mom” is Shanna Groves, who has three children aged 7-10. She’s the author of the book “Lip Reader.” Recently she started a campaign to contact various TV networks about having captions on all their website videos.
The Lipreading Mom’s Captions Campaign has a web page at http://lipreadingmom.com/lipreading-mom-captions-campaign/ with suggestions for becoming involved. There’s a draft letter and you can adapt and some links to send an email to TV networks – CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ABC, The 700 Club, TheWeatherChannel, BBC and ESPN.
You’ll also find some updates of actions Shanna has taken with these networks.
Shanna thanks the Collaborative for Communication Access via Captioning (CCAC) and its volunteers for their time and efforts with the campaign. You can learn more about CCAC at http://www.ccacaptioning.org/
- Thanks to NVRC news, 1/11/12.
Holy Comforter Catholic Church in Charlottesville installed a hearing loop system less than a year ago. Reverend Dennis McAuliffe said a large portion of its congregation includes senior citizens. He said often times those with hearing loss couldn’t follow along with mass.
Understanding the Sunday sermon is getting easier for the hearing impaired as more and more churches are installing hearing loops. Hearing loops allow people with hearing aids and cochlear implants to receive sound from a microphone. It’s like having words and music transmitted directly into the ear wirelessly.
“They’re now included rather than just sitting there you know, numb because they can’t hear that well,” Rev. McAuliffe said.
Jim Morrisard is a Holy Comforter parishioner and wears hearing aids in both ears. With the loop system he can now sit in the back row and clearly follow along with mass. Before the hearing loop he said that was hard to do.
“It’s very annoying. In other words, you start a sentence and you say the world is flat and I understand it as the world is round from that kind of stand point. You only catch half the conversation,” Morrisard said.
He said using the hearing loop is easy. There’s a switch on his hearing aid that he activates to tap into the loop system.
It cost Holy Comforter under $4,000 to install the system. First United Methodist Church in Charlottesville recently renovated its sanctuary and it now includes a hearing loop.
The Hearing Loss Association of America in Charlottesville meets the first Wednesday of each month (except in the summer) at 1 p.m. at the Senior Center on Greenbrier Drive. It’s an opportunity for the community to learn more about the technology that’s out there to help people hear well.
On the Web: www.hearingloop.org.
- Thanks to PL, HLACVA and NBC WVIR-TV 29, Jan. 10, 2012, http://www.nbc29.com/story/16486106/hearing-loop.
