A member of the Facebook cause Caption Action 2 contacted a Popular Cable Channel that we can not name publicly. That member was told that Popular Cable Channel is aware of the "demand" for captioning online but that they haven't heard much at all from deaf and hard of hearing people. Popular Cable Channel makes its decisions based upon "mass" appeal and "maximized" profits. However, now that the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009 has been introduced in Congress, Popular Cable Channel is now reportedly giving "serious" consideration to captioning online.
This is the same attitude that Paramount Home Video had over 20 years ago with regard to the deaf and hard of hearing community's desire for captions on the original Star Trek videos. At that time, Paramount told the first Caption Action that they wanted to hear from deaf and hard of hearing people before they would even consider having captions on the re-release of the original Star Trek videos.
Thus, this is one of the reasons that makes Caption Action 2 all the more important today. Some companies won't do the right thing unless they hear from us in large numbers.
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Good idea for internet captioning.
ReplyDeleteI did sign the petition.