Breaking the Sound Barrier Breakthroughs in Captioning

1. ITU Workshop on “Making Media Accessible to All:The Options and the Economics” (Geneva, Switzerland, 24 (p.m.) – 25 October 2013) Breaking the Sound BarrierBreakthroughs in Captioning Mike Starling, Esq. VP, Technology Research Center & NPR Labs National Public Radio Washington, D.C. Dr. Ellyn Sheffield Managing Director International Center for Accessible Radio Technology Towson University

2. Public Radio Covers 95% of U.S. Population

3. Breaking The Sound Barrier • Radio Captioning has launched! • Latino USA commenced Captioned Radio service on 22 February 2013 • Higher incidence of hearing loss among Hispanic children in U.S. • New service will include Emergency Alerting with bed-shaker support • Efforts supported by U.S. Department of Education, National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation Support (Project H133G090139)

4. Special Problems Captioning Radio Journalism • Radio requires more accurate, cost effective captioning process than TV • No visual cues for information context • Speaker and place name identification are critical to understanding breaking news • Localization and customization needed • Radio operating budgets are fraction of TV’s

5. Captioned Radio

6. Captioned Radio Service With Braille

7. Virtual Real Time Voice Writer & Editor Captioned Editor – Mouse Free Editing

8. Integrated Captioning & Transcription Service (ICATS)

9. Emergency Alerting Use CaseRe-creating the Radio ExperienceSans Sound • Interrupt the broadcast • Must be read before resuming show • New Advantages: • Can be stored for later review • Bed-shaker via USB triggers • Can send specialized messaging (multiple languages, including Braille, evacuation centers with sign language, accepting service animals) • Can be Geo-targeted

10. Reach individuals living in the US Gulf Coast who are deaf or hard of hearing.

11. 18 Centimeter Android Tablet

12. Business Model Sustainability NPR Labs voicewriting system is providing 98%+ accuracy with: more consistent output no dependence on “expert” captioners for major events Only 2 months of training time using ten screening assessments (vs. three years and tens of thousands in curriculum training costs) Result is highly efficient process that bundles Captions with Transcripts (Synchronized TTML & library archive formats)

13. Business Model Sustainability • In the U.S., underwriting mentions more than offset costs (“Captioning brought to you by . . . .”) • Bundled captioning and transcription process additionally saves 40% of transcription costs • Ancillary revenues from academia (disability support; campus events), radio station affinity underwriting builds community connections • Agnostic technology: ITU-R-BS1894; Internet

14. Conclusions and Recommendations • Captioned Radio is an idea whose time is here! • Roughly ½ of the hearing loss population is excluded from Radio • Globally, radio is robust, mature and widespread – part of community life • Resilient during emergencies when power grid is down

15. In the future All audio must become readable audio

16. International Center for Accessible Radio Technology Dr. Ellyn Sheffield ICART Captioning Center - CLA Towson University Towson, Maryland USA 21252 esheffield@towson.edu +1 (410) 704-6297 Mike Starling VP, Technology Research Center National Public Radio Washington, D.C. USA 20002 mstarling@npr.org +1 (202) 513-2484