More than three-quarters of the deaf and hard-of-hearing people surveyed on Election Night about captioned radio indicated they would be interested in purchasing HD Radios with captioning displays.
That’s according to NPR Labs, Harris and Towson University, which are cooperating on the captioned HD Radio project.
We’ve reported that the companies successfully demonstrated the ability to offer live, captioning over HD Radio at five locations on election night. A total of some 100 deaf and hard-of-hearing participants were surveyed about their likes and dislikes regarding the captioning.
According to the results:
- 95% were happy with the level of captioning accuracy, a crucial aspect for readability and comprehension
- 77% said they would be interested in purchasing a captioned radio display unit when it becomes available
- 86% indicated they would be interested in purchasing a “dual-view” screen display for a car (which would enable a deaf passenger to see the captioned radio text while the driver listens to the radio).
Demonstration participants also showed a strong desire to rely upon captioned radio in emergency situations — on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being extremely important, they ranked emergency notifications at 9.6 when asked what types of information would be important to receive through captioned radio broadcasts, said the companies, which formed the International Center for Accessible Radio Technology in January. General news came in second at 8.0.
Harris Chairman/President/CEO Howard Lance stated that “HD Radio’s benefits extend well beyond clearer signals and better sound — it sends data, scrolling real-time text, even images.” Caption radio “ushers in a whole new era of radio that can now finally be experienced by millions of deaf and hard-of-hearing people.”
