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	Date: September 30, 2002
	Contact: Kathy Lane	Contact: Helen Medvedovsky
	770-226-2102	212-780-1900
	klane@weather.com	helen@stanton-crenshaw.com

NEW CONTRACT EXTENDS CLOSED CAPTIONING AGREEMENT WITH THE WEATHER CHANNEL

Viewers who are deaf and hard of hearing will keep ‘round-the-clock access to their all-weather network

ATLANTA, September 30, 2002 –The Weather Channel (TWC) and the National Captioning Institute (NCI) have agreed to continue their successful relationship, signing a new three-year contract that will run through September 30, 2005. The Weather Channel currently offers 20 hours of real-time captioning to its viewers, and will remain at this level, providing daily service from 5 a.m. – 1 a.m.

“We deliver information that helps people prepare for and understand the weather, and how it may affect their lives,” said Bill Burke, president, The Weather Channel Companies. “There are more than 28 million Americans who are deaf and hard of hearing and we are fully committed to bringing them ready access to the reliable, expert weather information that consumers expect from The Weather Channel. We’re delighted to offer closed captioning of that information, along with our high quality maps and graphics.”

The Weather Channel and the National Captioning Institute entered into their first contract in January of 2000, for five hours a day of captioning, and this was quickly expanded to ten hours per day in June of 2000. In January of 2001, the network doubled the hours that viewers could receive closed captioning, expanding the service to 20 hours of programming a day. This made The Weather Channel the first cable network to offer such comprehensive closed captioning. At the time, William E. Kennard, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission noted that TWC was “several years ahead of schedule” in its compliance with captioning rules.

The procedure to create closed captioning for programming on The Weather Channel is very labor intensive and requires particular attention to detail. Because The Weather Channel on-camera meteorologists are well versed and knowledgeable about the weather and because of the extremely changeable nature of weather systems, the presenters “ad-lib” most of their presentation, rather than reading from a script. This means the closed captioning must be done “live” by real-time captioners at the National Captioning Institute, tuned in to The Weather Channel, who simultaneously key in the words as they are spoken. These are instantaneously transmitted with cable network’s satellite feed and decoded by television sets equipped for closed captioning.

The words appear on the viewers’ screens as two lines of text just above updates from local weather sensors available to all viewers through special technology exclusive to TWC. The closed captioning format was carefully planned to minimize infringement on the weather maps and graphics that are essential to The Weather Channel’s overall television picture.

“The Weather Channel should be commended for making its weather information accessible to the captioned television audience,” said Jack Gates, president and chief operating officer of the National Captioning Institute. “We are very pleased that our partnership with The Weather Channel has been extended because we know how vital weather coverage is to people who are deaf or hard of hearing as well as to many others who benefit from captioning.”

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About The Weather Channel
The Weather Channel, a 24-hour weather network, is seen in almost 84 million U.S. households, and 9.2 million households in Latin America. Its Web site, weather.com, attracts over 350 million page views per month, and is consistently ranked among the top TV-related Web sites by Nielsen//NetRatings. TWC also operates The Weather Channel Radio Network, The Weather Channel Newspaper Services, weather.com/espanol, weather.com/brasil and is the leading weather information provider for emerging technologies. This includes broadband and interactive television applications, with wireless weather products accessible through high-speed Internet services, phones, pagers, Palm Pilots, and other personal digital assistants. The Weather Channel is owned by Landmark Communications, Inc., a Norfolk, Virginia based, privately held media company.

About National Captioning Institute
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 to the broadcast television, cable and home video industries.

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