Captioning Sport – by Robyn Carter

About 4 years ago, I was lucky enough to be in the United States to visit my daughter.  It was midwinter, and the Winter Olympics were on.  I spent a night watching TV with a friend who was also deaf watching the olympics.  The ice skating was on.   It was captioned.  YES!  Captioned!  Sport!  Something we have yet to see happen here in New Zealand.  I learnt more about ice-skating by being able to ‘hear’ the commentators during this program, than I’ve ever learnt before.  I loved it.

We are hosting the Rugby World Cup soon.  Every western country have sporting events  available on television, and it will be captioned.  YES!  Captioned.  But not in New Zealand.  We the host country, where rugby is our national sport, and our lifeblood, do not caption it for our Deaf and hearing impaired supporters.

Nothing.  Nada.

Does this get you mad?  That once again we’re missing out?  It makes me wild.  Broadcasters should be making an effort to see that we have equal access.

So – let’s push this a bit further.  Kim Robinson has started a campaign, and you can be part of it.  Just follow the instructions below…

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Mondayitis to Thank God Its Friday Rugby World Cup Teletext Subtitle Campaign
Monday 24th to Friday 28th August

Lets have a great week with a write-in campaign to your local MP and Rugby World Cup Minister Murray Mccully to request the Rugby World Cup Television matches to be Teletext Subtitled Live. Throughout the week Monday to Friday, ask your friends, families and everyone to write in.

Pass this information around.

If you are a MP or Broadcaster – please join us with this week to write in as well!

Write to:
Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully
Freepost Parliament
Private Bag 18 888, Parliament Buildings
Wellington 6160

Or email Murray McCully

Then, write or email your local Electorate MP or check your local telephone book for details of your Local MP.

Join us on our Facebook Petition page as well

Copy and paste this bit below for your email/letter to the Minister – don’t forget to change the Ministers name if you are writing to your MP.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Dear Hon Murray Mccully,

As New Zealand is the host nation for the Rugby World Cup 2011, we would like you as Minister for Rugby World Cup to have all the Official Broadcasters (TVNZ, Maori Television, SKY) to Teletext subtitle all the televised matches live.

There are 239,000 people over the age of 15 years old with a Hearing loss (Census 2006) in New Zealand that require this means of access to follow the commentaries on Television.  Sporting events in western countries are captioned, and we would like to see the Deaf and hearing impaired in New Zealand, have the same kind of access with captioning for the Rugby World Cup,  particularly as New Zealand is host.

Your support to ensure this to happen would be greatly appreciated.

Yours Sincerely

XXX – YOUR NAME HERE

RWC Campaign Organiser: Kim Robinson, 81 Alabama Road, Blenheim email: kimrobinson@orcon.net.nz

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What are you watching on TV?

It’s Sunday night in New Zealand.  I’m in my usual spot in front of the TV watching my usual programmes.  First the TV1 News.  Then TV1 Wild Vets.  Then TV1 Sunday Docomentary.  Then TV1 Criminal Minds.  Then I’ll pop over to TV3 and watch CSI Miami before hitting the sack with a DVD or something.

But wait!  What’s on Sky TV at the same time?

I could be watching a whole host of things from Sunday Serial Killer (right up my alley), Casualty on UKTV – an old favourite of mine when it used to play on TV1.  There’s a couple of movies playing which I haven’t seen yet – Avatar,  or the Girl with the Pearl Earring.  On Discovery there’s a few interesting docos that have caught my eye.  The travel channel hosts a whole lot of interesting progammes from Sudan to the Ukraine.  Even the Animal Planet has some interesting programmes on.

But I don’t have that choice.  My choice is simply TV1, TV2 or TV3 as those are the only TV channels that have captions.

The Telecommunications Director from Sky says two things.  Firstly he wants proof that people actually want captions as he says he only gets one or two complaints per year from people asking for them.    So get writing.  Everyone that wants captions – write to the Communications Director of Sky Television.  I’ll even make it easier for you… Write to…

Mr Tony O’Brien

Telecommunciations Director

Sky Television

Po Box 9059

NewMarket

or simply email him on:   tobrien@skytv.co.nz

Secondly, he thinks that because the government provided the captioning devices for TVNZ and TV3, then Sky should also get these devices provided for by the NZ Government for the Deaf to have captions.

If Sky ever read this blog (I hope they do), let me point out to them that a). TVNZ and TV3 are Free to Air channels and they do not charge fees to be able to watch their programmes. and b).  I’d also like to point out that Sky  made a mere $88.1 million PROFIT AFTER TAX last year.  A captioning device is just a drop in the bucket for them.

That’s $88 million dollars folks.  And they want the government to provide the captioning machine with taxpayers money!!  Greed is so unattractive.

There’s something so wrong in this – what do you think?

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From Where I Sit…

There is no doubt about it.  Our New Zealand  captioning service for free to air Television on Channels one, two and three, do a stellar job.  Without them, thousands of people like myself would not have access to television viewing at all.

Captioning is not used just by the Deaf community.  Most people with any type of hearing impairment uses this captioning service on Teletext page 801.  And it’s not just Deaf or deaf people that are using it, but also the elderly,  people with English as a second language, and I’ve also heard that people with other disabilities find captions make their viewing much easier too.

With the advent of digital television, it was very worrying that we might lose this service when TVNZ phased out Teletext altogether in 2011/2012.  However, the Deaf Aotearoa has now been advised that TVNZ sees that it is important to continue with the captioning service, so long as NZ On Air continue to fund this.

That’s a huge relief.

But I see this as just a beginning.  This should not be an endpoint for this wonderful service, but a point where we can start lobbying and improving what we already have.

I see a number of core outstanding issues.  They are…

• Sky TV
• DVD captioning
• Laws
• Captions on TV OnDemand
• Maori TV/Prime

Sky Television..

Let’s face it.  When we travel to any other country like USA, UK, Ireland and even Australia.  Sky TV has captioning as part of the service.  We don’t.  I’d like to see Sky provide this service for us.  I personally don’t subscribe to Sky for this very reason, and I’m sure a lot of others don’t as well.  Do they not see Deaf or deaf people as part of their customer base?

DVD Captioning.

I already don’t go to movies as I miss too much of the dialogue.  Instead I have to wait for 4-6 months for the movie to come out on DVD.  A few years ago it was a given that the DVD’s would be captioned and so it was never a problem.  These days, you have to check very carefully, as now many of them aren’t coming with subtitles or captioning on them.   There is nothing so disappointing than arriving home with a DVD, ice-cream, lollies and having your own theatre experience at home, putting the DVD in and finding there’s no Captions.  It’s like a balloon deflating rapidly, and the ice-cream turns sour.

New Zealand movies are the biggest culprits of no captioning.  There’s nothing worse than reading a really good write up/rave about a New Zealand movie, waiting for the DVD to come out, to find that it’s not captioned.

How can we get across to the people bringing in these DVD’s  the importance of providing them to us with English Subtitles or Captions?  Seems to me that the Americans caption a DVD, then when they are copied for other regions, the captions are deliberately left off for some reason.  Who do we lobby for this?

Captioning with TV OnDemand

Whilst TVNZ do a wonderful job with captioning, if you miss a program and want to view it on the internet to catch up, there is currently no captioning service on this.  It would be wonderful if this could be done.  Captioning is being done on some You Tube dialogues using software that captures the word as it the character(s) speaks.  It’s not perfect, but you can easily get the gist.  I wonder if TVNZ could use this software to provide captions for those that like to use this service?  I know I would use it if I could, especially with a). no longer being able to record captions on my DVD recorder, and b). no longer able to record the channel  I’m not watching because Freeview doesn’t allow this.

Law

One of the things that New Zealand doesn’t have is a law like the ADA (American with Disabilities Act), which makes it illegal not to provide access for any disability, and in our case, captions or subtitling. I’m wondering whether we should lobby for this change?

Maori TV/Prime/TV3 News

It would be great if these could be captioned.  Someone said to me yesterday that if we can provide whole TV channels for  new immigrants coming into our country (Asian TV), why can’t they provide captioning for the Kiwi’s that live here that need this service, on as many channels as possible, including Pay TV.

Dialogue/Suggestions.

I would like to invite dialogue to this subject.  I don’t want complaints, I want ideas.  What can we do to change and improve our access to captioning?  What are your ideas?  Do you have any suggestions?

Please comment on the blog in the reply field.  All will be considered and I’ll keep updating the blog as news comes to hand.

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