ORLANDO SENTINEL
The Villages residents' pleas for closed-captions fall on deaf ears
Lauren Ritchie | COMMENTARY
May 18, 2008
Louis Schwarz, who lives part time in The Villages, would really love to get the scoop from the developer's television station about all the fun stuff going on in the massive retirement community of nearly 70,000 people.
The station claims in advertisements to supply 100 percent of all the local news, weather, sports, club listings, lifestyle stories, weather radar, consumer alerts, medical news, government information and storm coverage that Villages residents need.
But Schwarz can't get any of it. He's deaf, and the station doesn't offer closed captioning, though it is required by federal regulations to do so.
Schwarz, who has a financial-management firm based in suburban Washington, D.C., asked station management why VNN lacked captioning and was told the station didn't fall under rules requiring it.
Schwarz fired back this reply: Prove it.
About three weeks later, VNN filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission asking for an exemption.
'Undue burden'
That was just the beginning.
Schwarz's tenaciousness has ignited a furor over VNN and captioning, which allows viewers to read the dialogue on the screen in real time.
It has come to this: The Villages is threatening to pull VNN off the air because of the "undue burden" it would suffer if it is forced to provide closed captions.
First, a little background. VNN leases Channel 2 from Comcast. The station tapes 15 minutes of happy "news" a day and runs it over and over until 6 p.m. the next day, when a fresh 15-minute segment starts. It also airs club news and recreation events on Channel 20 and weather on Channel 99.
The Villages already is losing $1.4 million annually on VNN, lawyer Erick Langenbrunner of the law firm McLin & Burnsed wrote me in an e-mail. The station has never made money, he stated in the petition, and it shouldn't be forced to spend even more.
Langenbrunner made a compelling case to the FCC for how critically important VNN is to the residents of the community. He cited the community's "unique" situation and stated that residents have "special" needs, lifestyles and activities, "making access to a specialized, local news service more needed than in ordinary communities."
Losses undocumented
Asked why VNN's information is critical to people who can hear but not to those who can't, Langenbrunner didn't respond. Don't deaf people who live in the community join the clubs? Go to events at the recreation centers? Have local doctors? Golf?
He ignored two requests to provide documentation that the station loses $1.4 million a year. Instead, he wrote, "At some point, the increased loss experienced by The Villages will exceed the benefit VNN provides to the community. When considering both the initial capital cost as well as the ongoing operating cost to provide closed captioning, we arrive at that point."
But here's the real kicker:
"The Villages sincerely regrets that a small group of people may be responsible for VNN ceasing to provide its service to the community."
I think I gasped aloud when I read that one -- right before roaring with laughter. So VNN's demise would be the fault of those who can't hear and just want the station to comply with FCC captioning rules?
$65 a day
Deaf and Hearing Services of Lake & Sumter Counties serves at least 200 clients in The Villages. And if studies by Gallaudet University, the internationally respected school for the deaf, are correct, 44 percent of people 55 and older have trouble hearing. At least some of those roughly 30,800 Villages residents could benefit from captioning.
And the "undue burden" the Villages can't meet? It would be $65 a day if the Villages contracted with the National Captioning Institute, according to Jay Feinberg, director of marketing services for the nonprofit group based in Virginia -- cheaper, he said, if VNN did it themselves. The one-time capital investment is $3,000, he said, making the cost of the first year $26,725.
And the solution is . . .
It is with great relief that I am able to offer a solution.
Consider that The Villages' developer operates three corporate jets and a single-engine airplane from the flight department headquartered at Leesburg International Airport. In addition to pilots, maintenance and fuel, the developer lays out $137,515 annually for U.S. Customs agents to staff the airport so passengers aboard Villages flights from international destinations don't have to clear customs at some other port of entry.
Then there is the developer's Dutch-built 147-foot megayacht called the Cracker Bay and registered in the Cayman Islands.
Throttle back on jet fuel
First, let's take the mid-grade corporate jet, a Falcon 50. It can fly six hours on the approximately 2,382 gallons of fuel it carries. At $5.19 a gallon, it costs $12,362 to fill 'er up. Since Jan. 15, the jet made 95 flights to far-flung destinations, including the ski resort city of Aspen, Colo., and the Bahamas settlement of Marsh Harbour, a jumping-off point for vacationers to the out-islands.
At least some of the Villages' flights were freebies for political figures -- federal elections records show that developer Gary Morse contributed at least $565,000 to President Bush and the GOP over the past seven years, much of it in complimentary jet rides.
So if Morse trimmed just 12 hours of free rides for Republican friends, or eliminated a couple of winter jaunts to Aspen, he could save enough in fuel alone so that deaf people could "hear" his television channel for a whole year.
Or the captioning price easily could be recouped from the budget of the megayacht. The Cracker Bay has two Caterpillar diesel engines that at mid-cruising speed together suck down 112 gallons per hour.
If the Morse family just one time would forgo sending the Cracker Bay to Charlotte Amalie in the Virgin Islands, then flying down for a weekend rendezvous -- voila! Captioning could go on two years!
It's a marketing tool
Clearly, the developer can afford the cost of meeting FCC rules without "undue burden." But he could also solicit sponsors for closed captioning, as other stations routinely do. Surely advertisers want to reach a market of 70,000 retirees with disposable income and time to shop.
The key to the decision in The Villages case lies in the petition Langenbrunner submitted to the FCC. It states that VNN has never made money.
Of course not. That is because, despite advertising claims, VNN is a marketing tool, not a legitimate community news channel. It might provide information, but that is not its purpose. It exists to help the developer sell houses in the community.
There's nothing wrong with using television to sell homes, just as there's nothing wrong with being rich and having really cool toys such as jets and an exquisite megayacht.
A little P.R. advice
What's wrong is trying to shave money off your marketing program at the expense of people who are handicapped -- and claiming you can't afford it when the cost clearly is chump change. That becomes reprehensible when your whole business revolves around senior citizens, who in significant numbers have a hard time hearing.
The FCC isn't expected to rule for several months, so The Villages developer has the opportunity to do the right thing -- withdraw the petition and provide close captions on VNN.
And that action has the added attraction of providing a great little public-relations kicker for the developer.
Lauren Ritchie can be reached at
lritchie@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5918.