-
Closed caption
Hello to all who can help;
I will make this as short as possible. I have just started my own production business about a year ago. Money is not coming in as quick as I would like. So I came up with the great idea of doing a game show, which is something I always wanted to do. I was on a different local tv show before but left because working super long hrs and making almost nothing didn’t add up any more. Any who I have been approved by the TV station to air the show and this is sellable in my area, many are interested. I asked my lawyer what it would take for me to get exepmted for the CC for a few years till I can actually turn over some profit to buy the program which all I found was mac caption. But it’s $6000. My lawyer wants me to just place the whole script at the bottom of the screen untill I can purchase the program. And honestly I refuse to do that. Has anyone recieved an exemption and how did you go about it? Or is there another cheaper program that I can use on a Mac OSX? Any advise would be very much appricated! If the company I was with can get one I feel I should be able to as well. Please help.Thanks so much
Chuck Obie -
8 Replies
-
https://ftp.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/ccrules.html
(11) Captioning Expense in Excess of 2% of Gross Revenues. No video programming provider shall be required to expend any money to caption any video programming if such expenditure would exceed 2% of the gross revenues received from that channel during the previous calendar year.
(12) Channels Producing Revenues of Under $3,000,000. No video programming provider shall be required to expend any money to caption any channel of video programming producing annual gross revenues of less than $3,000,000 during the previous calendar year other than the obligation to pass through video programming already captioned when received pursuant to paragraph (c) of this section.
Theere may be an exemption for you but not the station you air on. They (the station) may require you to provide the captioning.
https://ftp.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/closedcaption.html
KB
-
Chuck,
There are plenty of companies out there that will do CC for you at around $500/half hour.
This is to transcribe and provide you with an encoded disc. You’ll then have to make a “CC” dub with this info for delivery. If that’s still to expensive for you, how about getting a sponsor to pony up the cost of CC in return for a mention in the program. “Closed Captioning provided by Joe’s Bar and Grill”.Mark
-
We use a live transcriptionist with a telephone hookup, we play the show over the phone and she transcribes it in realt time, sending her keyboard data back thru a phone line to our captioning unit. I think she charges a hundred an hour.
-
Thanks for all the info. If I were to send out the tapes for CC though and espically for the cost as well, for just the 12-24 shows I do I would have spent that in the CC sofware. That’s why this is a pain for me. Because after all is said and done that is what I was expecting to make from the show. So if I were to do the show then I would be breaking even. And I was hoping to pay off all of this new equipment I bought. I guess I will have to wait and plan this out more. Thanks for all the help and guidance.
Oh one other question instead of writing another whole new post:
How does one advertise for thier business? I was hoping to do the show and that would advertise the business and show are work at the same time. But since that looks like it is on hold. How does everyone else get new clients? Do you create your own commercials or what?Thanks
Chuck -
[titan3ium] “If I were to send out the tapes for CC though and espically for the cost as well, for just the 12-24 shows I do I would have spent that in the CC sofware. That’s why this is a pain for me.”
Here’s the thing- If you buy the software, you still have to do the captioning (or pay someone to do it with you software). If you send it out to a captioning service, it’s done for you. You may have spent the same amount of money, but someone else has done the work for you, and you’re still ahead.
And the time you didn’t spend on captioning can be spent on improving the show, selling the show somewhere else, working on other projects, with your family, or any other way you want.
Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog -
“Oh one other question instead of writing another whole new post:
How does one advertise for thier business? I was hoping to do the show and that would advertise the business and show are work at the same time. But since that looks like it is on hold. How does everyone else get new clients? Do you create your own commercials or what?”Thanks
ChuckWell, yes, among other things, that can be done, making spec spots is a well-worn tradition that gives you good creative practice, and a tool or calling card to introduce yourself around to prospective clients, as well as to add to a general portfolio of work examples.
My favorite strategy is to make spec psa’s for a charity or movement you support, that happens to also be one of the pet projects of the CEO at a company where you want to get some paying work. Use that to open doors. If nothing profitable comes of it, you at least contributed some pro-bono towards something for the public good. Take the entire pro-bono project and from the inception, make press releases about it before, during, and after, devote a custom web site to it, leverage your work so that it is being used in as many ways as possible to get you read, seen, talked about.
BTW, don’t confuse advertising with marketing, they are two different things that share some commonalities. Advertising is part of your marketing, but only a part. To get back to your original problem, you don’t want to caption because it eats the original planned profit margin.
You don’t have a captioning problem, as I see it, you have a financing/ budgeting/ marketing problem. If you believe in the show, you should stick with it, and concentrate on more realistic yet creative plans for the financing of it. Don’t give up just as the finish line comes into view ahead.
-
Thanks for all the advise folks! Just know I am not giving up on this, I may have to put it on the back burner longer than I wanted and maybe start talking with places now and set it up for next spring/summer. But giving up is not really an option for me. Thanks again!
Chuck
-
[titan3ium] “But giving up is not really an option for me. “
That’s the most important thing!
Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up