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Executive Summary

Executive Summary

• The working committee was set up in December 2004 to examine French-language captioning, especially in real time, which requires special technology.

• The committee was created after Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier complained that CBC/Radio-Canada did not caption all of its programming for the deaf and hearing impaired on its conventional network and its RDI specialty channel.

• Radio-Canada explained that this was essentially due to a shortage of staff skilled in its real-time captioning method—computer-assisted stenotypy—and the lack of French-language training in the field.

• This report looks at Radio-Canada's proposed action plan to resolve the situation and can be summarized as follows:

• Help raise awareness of La Cité collégiale’s new stenotypy program to begin in September 2005 through the Corporation's communications expertise and the strength of its national (network and RDI) and regional (CBOFT-Ontario and CBAFT-Atlantique) services.

• Accept interns from the La Cité collégiale program and complete their training at its expense over a period of at least 12 months; hire them for its captioning unit if they meet its requirements and needs.

• Replace the Médiatex system to achieve greater system speed and reliability; carefully monitor developments in voice recognition technology as they apply to real-time captioning.

Introduction

The Working Committee on French-Language Closed Captioning on Radio-Canada’s Television was set up further to an agreement in December 2004 between CBC/Radio-Canada and Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier through mediation organized by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Senator Gauthier had filed a complaint against the Corporation claiming that not all of its and RDI's programming was accessible to the deaf and hearing impaired.

The Corporation acknowledged that it does not currently caption all programs on its national network and RDI, but explained that levels were in compliance with the licence obligations of both networks, and that the situation essentially resulted from a shortage of staff skilled in real-time captioning.

It suggested creating this working committee, which is made up of Senator Gauthier and representatives of CBC/Radio-Canada and La Cité collégiale in Ottawa, and is chaired by the Commission.

The purpose of the Committee was to study the issue of French-language captioning in order to take the steps required to make all programming on its main French-language television network and RDI available to the deaf and hearing impaired, under acceptable conditions.

The Committee met three times from January to March 2005. Between these meetings, members contacted stakeholders and experts in various areas of the captioning field (training, technical, users, etc.).

History of Closed Captioning at Télévision de Radio-Canada

January 1982: Radio-Canada broadcasts its firs t captioned French-language drama series, Terre humaine. At the time, viewers had to purchase a decoder at a cost of approximately $350 to watch the captioned program.

1984: Radio-Canada captions its 10 p.m. Téléjournal newscast, becoming the first TV network in the world to provide the deaf and hearing impaired with a daily captioned newscast.

1992: Radio-Canada goes on the air with its Médiatex system, developed in-house with the Canadian Workplace Automation Research Centre (CWARC), IBM France, and Grandjean. The system produces real-time captioning via computer-assisted stenotypy technology adapted for TV.

2001: Videoconferencing links are established between regional newsrooms and the stenotypy unit at Maison de Radio-Canada, making it possible to caption Radio-Canada's nine regional newscasts in real time.

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