NEWSrelease

News from the National Captioning Institute, Inc.

Date: March 18, 2003

Contact: Jay Feinberg

703-917-7600 (V/TTY)

703-917-9853 (FAX)

jfeinberg@ncicap.org

NCI Provides Video Description for Sesame Street

Millions of blind and low vision children are given the opportunity to fully experience one of America's most beloved children's programs

Washington, DC – The National Captioning Institute (NCI) and Sesame Workshop announce the introduction of descriptions on Sesame Street to make the program accessible to children who are blind or have low vision.

NCI will describe 26 new episodes of Sesame Street scheduled to begin airing on April 7, 2003. By incorporating descriptions, Sesame Workshop will be making one of the most beloved educational children’s programs accessible to millions of children who are blind or have low vision. Visually impaired children will have the opportunity to “see” the images through the descriptions of the visual elements and finally be able to embrace the full educational value of the program.

Sesame Street descriptions are not only for those who are blind or have low vision. All children can appreciate and benefit from the carefully selected words and phrases used to describe the visual elements of the program. The descriptions allow children to enhance their vocabulary and articulation skills as well as improve their understanding of word associations.

“NCI is excited to partner with Sesame Workshop to add descriptions to Sesame Street. This technology, coupled with closed captions and the educational content of the program, will help contribute to the development of sophisticated language skills for all children”, stated Jack Gates, NCI President and COO.

Video description provides access to television and prerecorded video programming for people who are blind or have low vision, an estimated audience of over 12 million Americans. This detailed process provides concise and vivid descriptions of a program’s visual elements enabling viewers to “see” colors, costumes, settings, facial expressions, gestures and actions.

Description writers carefully select words that bring lasting images to life that not only enable those who are visually impaired to enjoy televised or recorded programs, but also enhance the experience for all program viewers. Selected descriptions are added during pauses in the dialogue within the program without disrupting the original soundtrack. Descriptions can be heard through the Secondary Audio Programming (SAP) or Multi-channel Television Sound (MTS) feature on your television or remote.

Sesame Street, which first aired on public television stations in 1969, is the longest running children’s program and has also earned the distinction of being the longest running children’s program with closed captions. Captioning of Sesame Street began soon after NCI introduced closed captioning for national network programming in 1980 for the benefit of people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

"Sesame Workshop has always been committed to creating innovative and educational programs that make a lasting impact on children's lives at every stage of development," said Jodi Nussbaum, Sesame Workshop's Group Vice President, TV, Film and Home Video. "We are proud to work with NCI to make Sesame Street's rich content — from our unique cast of characters to our humorous and engaging storylines — available to additional communities, encouraging all children to develop a life long love of learning."

With offices in the Washington, DC metropolitan area; Burbank, CA; New York, NY; Dallas, TX; and London, England, the nonprofit National Captioning Institute is the global captioning leader, supplying the highest-quality closed captioning and related services for broadcast and cable television, home video and DVD, and government and corporate video programming.

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