Twitter used to police television caption quality

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Tuesday, 1 November 2011 17:13pm

The Northern NSW TV station, NBN, has set up a Twitter account which allows viewers to alert the station to captioning problems. This is the first time an Australian station has opened up this kind of channel for caption discussion and could become a model for other stations to follow. 

In reaction to a series of non-compliance with captioning regulations the station has set up a “visual’ captioning alert internally in its presentation centre to highlight any programs going to air without captions. In addition, the station is asking caption viewers to alert it to any problems via the social networking service, Twitter. 

The Twitter account is @nbntech. To alert NBN to a captioning issue, simply log on to Twitter and select “mention @nbntech” in the drop down menu. It is also exploring other ways to allow caption problems to be reported, including SMS. 

Media Access Australia CEO Alex Varley said, “It is good that NBN is trying to make the process of reporting problems easier and other stations should look at this too. I hope that they also put as much effort into ensuring that the captions are there and of good quality in the first place.”

The station was recently found in breach of its license conditions by failing to caption the TV Week Logie Awards.


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