Did you write letter to TV broadcaster?
1 04 2006
Let’s talk about 100% captioning.
Let’s be realistic. You and I have to realize that not every TV show will not captioning for one reason or another.
Right now, I am feeling frustrated with this whole current procedure. Often, I saw no closed captioning on TV show, what is first thing I am suppose to do? I have to look hard to get their office address. What’s next? I have to type up nice letter & mail it. FCC will not help you if you did email and get no response from vendors unless you mail it (real paper and stamp) and save copy. You will need a hard copy and show to FCC after 30 or 60 days — they will help you.
Can you image many people would do it? Not many – I am sure of it maybe except few big serious like emergency on TV news. I know few groups in another state or cities did good job but it take a lot of time and energy to take the action.
We have thousands of channels on cable or satellite line-up. There’s endless kind of channels – some are big and well-known such as HGTV, History Channel, MTV, etc and we also have many smaller less-known channel such Spanish-English channel, town hall channel, specialty show, Pay-Per-View, religion, adults and others.
Do we have profile for each channel like how many hours they perform weekly and how big they are in nationwide. How many people work for them? What is their physical address? Can we talk to them via email address? Do they have designed person that handle caption issues? How do we know if they meet FCC requirement or not?
What we really need to develop but who will? This is just example - it would be cool if we have one….
- TV Broadcaster directory for easy to check for profile, address, etc. (numbers of employees, years in TV business, history, etc.)
- Third party website that allows us to track every channel. (Quality, in house or 3rd party vendors, history, etc.)
- Show each channel if they qualify 100% captioning mandatory law or not.
- Easy way to communicate with each vendors (email, phone, forum, etc.) for follow-up, no captioning concern, etc. (Like designated person)
Last Thursday, I watched American Inventor TV show on ABC channel — HD format. I quickly changed it to regular channel and it doesn’t captioning either. They blocked TV show and showed radar (weather) all over Texas-Oklahoma at 8:00 PM, 8:15 PM, 8:30 PM and 9:00 PM due to thunderstorm warning and tornado watch. In fact, it did not hit anything bad in my area but it really hit hardest in Sherman area and as well as Oklahoma area.
I don’t know their website address, office address, and who to contact. I am sure I can find it somewhere with Google help but I get tried of looking around every time. Sigh.
Let’s be honest – did you ever mail letter to TV broadcaster before report to FCC? Yes, I mean mail – not email. Tell us what you think and tell me your idea how to make it easy to file complaints.
FCC Closed Captioning Fact Sheet:
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/closedcaption.html
Refresher yourself with 2006 TV Captioning and Action Guide – Click here.
Grant W Laird Jr.
http://blot.grantlairdjr.com
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