Captions on the screen

To many hearing impaired viewers, captions or subtitles are indispensable for understanding TV shows and movies. A lack of captioning of news, debates, sports and entertainment contributes to the sense of isolation in society felt by hearing impaired people. Captions, on the other hand, put them on a less unequal footing with everybody else by providing access to the information we all need. Most TV stations still provide closed captioning only on a limited basis. In recent years, however, the issue has received much attention in the United States, as well as in Europe. A number of countries have established regulations or guidelines setting out how many hours or percent of programming must offer closed captioning by various TV stations. In these pages, hear-it provides information on a variety of ways closed captioning or subtitles are provided and the availability of captioning of TV programming in various countries. The captioning may take the form of simple subtitles, limited only to spoken lines, or more comprehensive captions, including descriptions of background sounds, and more specifically tailored to severely hearing impaired and deaf viewers. In some countries, no distinction is made between subtitles and closed captioning.