ONLINE CAPTIONING: THE RIGHT THING TO DO
[SOURCE: TVWeek, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] In 1971, Julia Child's great cooking show "The French Chef" became
the first TV program accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people through
closed captioning. Today, more than 35 years later, closed captioning isn't
available to those who need it to enjoy new shows such as "Ugly Betty" or
"Jericho" by streaming them on the Web or downloading them from iTunes. So even
as the television industry embraces the digital age, it's leaving behind some
disabled Americans, as well as those who use closed captioning to learn to
speak English. That means that more than 23 million viewers in the U.S. are
being excluded from the future of television in which viewers can watch
whatever they want, wherever and whenever they want. We urge the industry to do
what's right and devote whatever resources are necessary to provide closed
captioning for all the material they are distributing over developing digital
media. Given the low pricetag and the ease with which any technological
barriers can be crossed, it's difficult to see why the networks haven't done
more to treat hard-of-hearing Americans equally in the digital world. Now that
the issue has been illuminated, it's time for them to act.
http://tvweek.com/news/2007/06/online_captioning_the_right_th.php
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