[Indy-Guy]

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.

[jadebox]

What does Vnn have to do with how the Morses spend their hard earned private money. These people are sick with jealousy. We could live in a terribly run place with poor developers. Now wouldn't that be fun. There is no way they should have to do close captioning for a small percentage of people. I promise if I go deaf I will not want thousands of dollars spent for me to watch a boring 15 minutes of TV repeated over and over again.

[villages07]

Indy,

Interesting article...thanks for posting. First I've heard of this issue. Methinks the real truth is somewhere in the middle...it would probably cost more than $65/day to provide the service but not enough to be an undue burden to the developer. The station is primarily a marketing tool....very few advertisers outside the Villages-owned business themselves have commercials.

It'll be interesting to see how the FCC rules....VNN is a cute sideshow but certainly not a vehicle for getting in depth local, national, or international news. The amount of original programming has declined in the past 2 years...I had "heard" (and you know how reliable that might be) that they were losing so much money that they cut back on staff and programming. Maybe they don't aggressively seek out advertisers?

Hopefully, Mr Schwarz (no relation to Harold, I presume) won't take this so far as to sue the developer for depriving him of this critical lifeline. The Morse family must be feeling like litigation targets these days. It would be a shame if this relatively minor issue caused TV to cease broadcasting VNN (or using it as an excuse to pull VNN).

Indy Guy,

Thank you so much for an excellent post!!!!

You can BS the people all the time with your total control of the media and brainwash with meetings and the paper. The people will follow like sheep.

But this is America and there are laws.

Thanks again!

I bet the Buffalo issue is the same thing. The pastures will bring in money and we can't say we are greedy and we don't give a **** what the residents want so we lie. It won't be the first time.

[Muncle]

Originally Posted by mcelheny

Indy Guy,

Thank you so much for an excellent post!!!!

You can BS the people all the time with your total control of the media and brainwash with meetings and the paper. The people will follow like sheep.

But this is America and there are laws.

Thanks again!

I bet the Buffalo issue is the same thing. The pastures will bring in money and we can't say we are greedy and we don't give a :edit: what the residents want so we lie. It won't be the first time.

Well, it's good to see a reasoned response.

Indy, thanx for posting the commentary. The Orlando Slantenal is my last paper on Sundays and I hadn't gotten to this yet. I wonder what Lauren Ritchie does with her money when she could be donating it to charity to make the world a nicer place. She's probably blowing it on nice clothes, expensive restaurants, and a car better than some others have. Hope, you are right on the ball with that comment. How the Morse's spend their private money is not my business and it's certainly not Ms Ritchie's.

07, I beg to disagree a bit about the role of VNN. I don't see it as much of a marketing tool other than a "Hey, we got our own television station" blurb and the show of homes for Properties of TV. That's nice, and might sell a few homes, but the real value aside from something like yesterday's great replays of the Morse speech and the good work they did at tornado time is the sense of community it provides. I don't know Priscilla Salute, nor will I likely ever meet her, but I've seen her kicking tail on the golf course for several years on VNN and I feel a connection. I don't know anyone in the Village Idiots or Golf Cart Drill Team, but their appearances on VNN makes them real people. The neighborhood buzzes on occasion with news that Bob and Carol were on VNN --- watch for the story on the new bank --- they're in it. You feel the time you're devoting to your Animal Husbandry group is wasted, right up until they do a 5 minute story on your group and suddenly strangers are stopping you at Publix to ask about it. Yeah, yeah, it's mostly puff. But that's okay.

News --- no, no, VNN is not going to be doing investigative pieces to try to uncover scandal in the Morse family, embezzlement from Citizen's First, or kickbacks to POA from home inspectors. The news that they will cover will be what the Developer and, to a lesser degree, the CDD want out there. They want good news. It benefits TV. It benefits us. If there is bad news, they'd like it presented in a context that might provide a more favorable or at least more complete picture. There are ample organs around to provide negative coverage of TV. The Slantenal, the Ocala and Leesburg papers, several small papers in Sumter County, even the St. Pete's Times and whatever that Tampa paper is. It's understandable to see the bias in the Sumter County, Leesburg, and even Ocala paper (remember who put out The Reporter). They're scared. They are, in many cases, being overwhelmed by the sheer size of TV. Bushnell is used to running Sumter County. Now it's about the population of a couple villages. Leesburg's been the big dog in this immediate area. Today Leesburg has 20,000 people, TV 70,000. Oh, and Ocala has 50some thousand. And we're all newbies, perceived to be northerner and perceived to be rich. ~~~~ oh did I go off on a tangent. sorry about that. Back to VNN news. They will cover stuff like the murder last year and the baby disappearance and cute mother's suicide, but that's the exception. If I want to hear about raising gas prices and not drilling for oil or natural gas in the US, I'd best change channels. Same if I want to hear the latest electioneering, unless a candidate happens to appear here. I'll hear nothing about the fighting in the Near East except for a lot of features on the wonderful work being done by the great folks at Operation Shoebox ---- unless, of course, the child or grandchild of one of my neighbors does something notable or, God forbid, has something bad happen to them.

Many years ago, when cable was first starting, I think the concept was to have at least one station available dedicated to local stuff. This was the station that broadcast the town council meetings live, as well as the school board, generally with really poor production values. But it didn't matter, cuz nobody watched. The goal for those channels, what the original concept foresaw, was what we have in VNN. Anyone surprised it doesn't make money?

[chelsea24]

I don't know enough about VNN's expenses to respond to that, but I do know about the problems of the deaf. My mother wore a hearing aid and my husband has only has 10 percent hearing in one ear and 0 in the other. He had a cochlear implant two years ago and it's been like a miracle to us.

And here's another thing I do know. The majority of hearing people don't give a rat's behind about the problem of the hard of hearing or deaf people. I suspect that carries over into the blind or nearly blind community. There was a time in Illinois when we couldn't get captioning because of the way our house was situated. The signal wouldn't come through. We went to the Home Owners Association and asked if we could put up a satellite dish (at that time it was against bylaws). I almost fell over when two or three of the board members actually said that "Television is a luxury. Why don't you just read a book." I can't even put into words here how I felt when I looked at my husband's face. It broke my heart. I also can't put into words what my response was! :verymad:

So, I got ALDA involved. The Association for Late-Deafened Adults. Also, dragged out The American Disabilities Act. That covers hearing loss as well as other disabilities. Maybe someone can use this to take action.

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) is the short title of United States (Pub.L. 101-336, 104 Stat. 327, enacted 1990-07-26), codified at 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq., signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H. W. Bush. The ADA is a wide-ranging civil rights law that prohibits, under certain circumstances, discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal. Disability is defined as "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity."

U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
Coordination and Review Section

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) gives civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities that are like those provided to individuals on the basis of race, sex, national origin, and religion. It guarantees equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities in employment, public accommodations, transportation, State and local government services, and telecommunications.

I now know my husband's rights and there have been times we've stayed at a hotel and the television wasn't captioned. I just call the front desk and they either send someone right up to turn it on, or in one case, they had to go out and get us a new television.

Yes, it might be a luxury, but it is also his right.

[bestmickey]

[redwitch]

Well said, Chels!

[Frangyomory]

VNN and the Daily Sun along with most of the other commercial properties here in the Villages are owned by the Morse family. I don't think $65 a day is a lot to pay to keep our hearing impaired and deaf community in the loop.

At St. Timothy Church, our 9 am mass has an interpreter for the deaf and I thiink this is wonderful.

I would really like to see the family go ahead and do the right thing and pay the $65 a day for the hearing impaired/deaf ability to enjoy the Morse owned television station.

Since all buildings are required to be accessible to individuals with physical handicaps, why shouldn't the television station keep up with as well although deaf people don't like to be considered handicapped. Let's support the closed captioning for VNN.

If we can support keeping the buffalo the least we can do is support something for people as well.

[renielarson]

Chels...so eloquently stated

My husband has been classified as hearing disabled resulting from the Viet Nam War. I agree that close captioning should not be an issue...it should be required.

[zcaveman]

I have a hearing problem and because there is no closed caption (CC) on VNN I do not watch it.

I purchased hearing aids last year but they do not help because of the speed and the quality of the audio on TV (and radio).

BTW: Hearing aids do not correct a hearing problem. They only amplify the sounds so we can hear them.

I do not go to movies because of no CC. I return DVDs without watching them if they have no CC or English subtitles. I have the HD box for my HDTV and the CC on the HD stations absolutely sucks. It is out of sync and is not the same quality as the non-HDTV stations. When I lose the CC from any station, I have to call and go through a bunch of hassle with COMCAST because they do not seem to understand that one station can lose its CC signal. They need to reset some piece of equipment and it turns CC back on. Until then, I have to bypass that station.

I could care less if VNN had CC. But I do take issue with the fact that VNN thinks they are exempt. If they broadcast TV signals they are suppose to have CC. And even though the article says that most of VNN is advertising, we all know that it isn't.

For all of you that are defending VNN against the CC issue, do me a favor and turn off the sound on your TV and watch VNN for a day and then let me know who much you enjoyed it.

As someone once said "do not judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes". In this case until you have listened an hour without sound.

And if you think that the hard of hearing people are in the minority, start checking the ears of the people you see at the golf courses, in the stores and restaurants and on the street. You will see that there are many of us. Once I decided to get hearing aids, I start looking and noticed it.

[renielarson]

:bigthumbsup: well said, zcaveman

[renielarson]

Now now Muncle

Name calling needs to stop... :

[jadebox]

[quote=zcaveman ]
I have a
For all of you that are defending VNN against the CC issue, do me a favor and turn off the sound on your TV and watch VNN for a day and then let me know who much you enjoyed it.

I would hate to see VNN go away just because it is a part of The Villages and kind of neat to say we have our own TV station BUT I don't enjoy it WITH sound.

[Talk Host]

While watching (listening to) television, have you ever heard the announcer say, "Closed captioning brought to you by............? That means that an advertiser has paid a fee to provide the service. No station picks up the fee on its own, they sell advertising to cover it.

I have been in the radio and television business for 45 years and our sales staffs have always sold advertising to cover the cost of everything we do, from business travel, to clients lunches and dinners to "closed captioning." Ever see that little wording at the end of the newscast that says something like, "Mr. Williams wardrobe provided by Goodwill Industries?"

I would believe that there are hundreds, if not thousands, or companies that would delight in paying the cost of closed captioning for residents of the Villages. Don't forget, their ads are not targeted to just the hearing impaired, they are visible to everyone.