ITU Workshop on
“Making Media Accessible to All:
The Options and the Economics”
(Geneva, Switzerland, 24 (p.m.) – 25 October 2013)
Breaking the Sound Barrier
Breakthroughs 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
Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013

Public Radio Covers 95% of U.S. Population

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)
Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013
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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
Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013
4

Captioned Radio

Captioned Radio Service With Braille
Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013
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Virtual Real Time Voice Writer & Editor
Captioned Editor – Mouse Free Editing
Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013
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Integrated Captioning & Transcription
Service (ICATS)

Emergency Alerting Use Case
Re-creating the Radio Experience
Sans 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
Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013
9

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

18 Centimeter Android Tablet
Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013
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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)
Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013
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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
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Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013

Conclusions and Recommendations
Captioned Radio is an idea whose time is here!
Globally, radio is robust, mature and widespread – part of community life
Roughly ½ of the hearing loss population is excluded from
Radio
Resilient during emergencies when power grid is down
Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013
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Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013
15

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
Geneva, Switzerland, 24 October 2013
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