Closed Captioning, Editing, and Reading Rate - Not Just Child's Play

Though a good portion of closed captioning one sees is captioned verbatim - that is, the words that one reads match exactly what the speaker says - the most diligent closed captioning companies often frown upon editing their closed captioning, as it can detract from natural speech and context. However, when producers of a show have an audience of a specific age or learning ability in mind, closed captioning can and often must be edited to achieve several closed captioning standards.

One such closed captioning standard is reading rate, or words per minute (WPM), a numeric range that symbolizes how fast a person may read the closed captioning, interpret video content, and best understand a show with closed captioning. For example, shows targeted toward the youngest audiences feature slow speakers and, as a result, closed captioning that seems to crawl across the screen, as most children simply cannot read quickly. The closed captioning reading rate for these audiences generally may not exceed 120-130 WPM, which means that, depending on a show's length, each individual caption stays onscreen for about two seconds. Naturally, closed captioning reading rates for other age groups increase proportionately by both age and content. Adult special-needs closed captioning is the next range, then children's theatrical, and finally, adult theatrical closed captioning that appears on screen at a near-verbatim rate, sometimes exceeding 400 WPM!

But what happens when a program's dialog is presented at a rate significantly faster than the requested closed captioning reading rates? Luckily, the closed captioning company has a few options, the first of which is to simply adjust the timing of the closed captioning, a process performed within the software program used to create the closed captioning. The editors that create the closed captioning manually tweak each caption, frame-by-frame, to have them appear earlier and/or leave the screen later. In verbatim closed captioning, sometimes the close captioning may go by so fast that the closed captioning program will alert the editor that the timing must be adjusted in order for the closed captioning to be properly displayed when broadcast.

When even adjusting the timing of the closed captioning is a lost cause, a second method is editing the words within the closed captioning. Sometimes this is a tricky venture, since video producers may have provided their own scripts for closed captioning but simply did not realize their intended closed captioning reading rate does not mesh with their program's average speaking speed. A closed captioning company may then remove unnecessary adjectives, repeated phrases, etc. from the closed captioning, all the while making sure that the closed captioning keeps intact the integrity and context of the program.

Sometimes, this verbal editing in closed captioning is also necessary when a program or movie originally intended for an adult audience airs during times when a younger audience may view it. The production company may have edited the video and removed curse words from the audio, but since everything for air must have closed captioning, how does a closed captioning company compensate for these edits? They may either insert hyphens or asterisks to censor curse words in the closed captioning, or delete these words from the closed captioning altogether. They may also, in the closed captioning encoding process, add a V-chip rating to the final program. V-chips ratings are embedded in video much like closed captioning is, and work in conjunction with a viewer's television to warn them about - or prevent them from watching - such a program.

Preventing people from watching programs, however, generally goes against the point of closed captioning, and no one knows this more than video production and closed captioning companies! These companies, in tandem, work to best serve their audiences by paying attention to closed captioning reading rates and by editing video and closed captioning, thus ensuring the best possible product - and one that is fully accessible. Children and adults, young learners and old, may not know or appreciate the ways in which closed captioning meets their educational needs, but closed captioning companies are there for them anyway. One such closed captioning company, New York's Video Caption Corporation, is happy to provide the necessary closed captioning for all audiences!