Press release from the City of Fort Wayne:
Live closed captioning available for City Council meetings
Service available on Council’s weekly City TV broadcastsAt the suggestion of Fort Wayne City Councilwoman Liz Brown, Mayor Tom Henry has authorized the engagement of a closed-captioning service for Fort Wayne City Council meetings. Each weekly council session is now televised with live closed captioning. The on-screen captioning also appears on rebroadcasts of the meetings.
As part of the ongoing collaboration between the City of Fort Wayne, City TV and Access Fort Wayne, Aberdeen Captioning Inc. was hired to start the service in June. City TV viewers can watch the spoken word live on Comcast 58 or Verizon 28 by enabling the closed-captioning function available on most televisions.
The system works with an off-site captioner. The City provides a telephone line with an audio feed of the meeting. The captioner, much like a traditional court stenographer, uses a special device to type the words as they are spoken. A second phone line connects to the captioning equipment in Fort Wayne and inserts the text into the video feed, often with less than a second delay.
The City’s one-year contract with Aberdeen is for 98 percent accuracy at 200 words per minute. The cost is $115 per hour of meeting. The cost is funded through the cable administration fund, a non-property tax resource generated through cable franchise fees.
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