Captioning called for

The New Zealand Captioning Working Group is asking for your help to make a real difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of Deaf & Hard of Hearing New Zealanders.

Video is everywhere these days and accessible on many devices or is it? For many of us, who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing, we need video captioning words on the screen so we can read what you say. Without it, watching TV becomes a lip reading challenge which might seem funny for a minute, but not for a lifetime!

We’d like you to do two simple things first, please sign our petition at:

bitly.com/CaptionitNZPetition

and show your support for giving us access, then, most importantly, please share it via your social networks.

Also, we have a petition paper version available at www.nfd.org.nz if you would prefer to sign and scan this back to us at [email protected]

So what is captioning? Captions are a little bit like subtitles that you see on a foreign film, but they are in the same language as spoken audio. They also include text for sound effects like “door slamming” or song lyrics, or simply say “silence” when there is no sound at all. Captions show us what other viewers can hear. Without them, TV is a series of moving pictures and guesswork.

We’d like captions to be the responsibility of broadcasters. People that need them can turn them on using a button on their remote control or by choosing an option on their phone, tablet or computer.
In New Zealand we’ve fallen a long way behind our neighbour, Australia. Their TV stations are required to broadcast with captioning. The United States has had captioning legislation for decades. United Kingdom, Canada and much of Europe also require broadcasters to caption. But in New Zealand: