Closed Caption for Churches
If you broadcast video of your services, it is a great idea that you have closed captioning available. In fact, the FCC is mandating that it be included.
Our church outsources this and has found it to be more economical that doing it in house. I highly recommend the folks at Creative Caption & Video. (http://www.creativecaption.com/)
If you have not begun closed captioning, there is a link on the Creative Caption & Video site that gives information about filing a petition for exemption with the FCC.
There is some question over the issue of exemptions. Earlier in the year, the FCC issued advice that they would NOT give "financial hardship" exemptions for churches seeking to avoid CC requirements. However, there have been a couple of exemptions recently granted for very, very small parachurch or volunteer produced programs.
The real question is this. Why would you not closed caption. The percentage of people with hearing loss of some type is close to 10 percent of the population. The cost is not much, particularly when compared with what you are probably paying for air time. You should be able to find captioning for less than $100 per half hour. Probably quite a bit less! Shop it around.
Posted by: Kirk Longhofer | October 12, 2006 at 06:54 PM