Page 14-Tuesday, August 12, 1980-The Michigan Daily
Only PBS
expands TV
captionng for
deaf viewers
WASHINGTON (AP) - Six months
after its inception, the federally suppor-
ted effort to enhance television's value
to the deaf has prompted more than
24,000 people to buy the $250 decoders
needed to-display otherwise invisible
captions on selected shows..
But only the Public Broadcasting
Service is expanding its number of such
programs, and, among the commercial
networks, CBS still has none at all.
"I THINK we're on target, but the
hearing-impaired community is going
Shark.
"
warning s
ale ri N. C
swimers
OCEAN ISLE BEACH, N.C. (UPI) -
Surfers and swimmers ignored war-
nings of prowling sharks yesterday to
splash in the Atlantic off a vacation
beach where a 10-year-old girl was at-
tacked.
"They don't care," said Ethel
Williamson, an employee at a beach
pier. "People will stick their foot in a
fire to see ifit will burn."
MOST VACATIONERS, however,
heeded the warning and stayed on the
sand.
There were no reports of shark
sightings yesterday.
But during the weekend, hundreds of
hungry and prowling sharks were
reported near shore in Carteret County,
about a hundred miles to the north of
Ocean 'Isle Beach.
Connell Purvis, director of the State
Division of Marine Fisheries, said there
have been only two documented cases
of shark bitings in North Carolina this
summer.
Sunday's attack was reported to an
estimated 25,000 people crowding the
Brunswick County beaches near the
North Carolina-South Carolina border.
EVERYN, HT Pm"10,
WO'OFFCOVER
GREATLY REDUCED PRICES ON
ALL BEVERAGES "
to have to continue showing its sup-
port," said Jane Miller, a
spokeswoman for the National Cap-
tioning Institute (NCI),
"It's the old chicken-and-egg
problem," she said. "The deaf want to
know when more programs will be cap-
tioned, while the commercial networks
want to know when more people are
going to purchase decoders."
The captioning program is unique on
several fronts, including the level of
cooperation among ABC, NBC, and
PBS and a commitment by Sears,
Roebuck and Co. to sell the decoders at
cost - currently $249.95.
NCI IS a non-profit organization
founded last year with seed money
from the federal government. It is ex-
pected to become self-supporting
through the fees it charges for cap-
tioning and encoding TV programs.
That process employs the use of new
technology which allows users of the
decoders to see the, captions without
irritating other viewers who don't want
words dancing across their TV screen.
The key to the system is the use of a
small portion of the standard TV signal.
Television pictures are made up of
lines, some of which are blank. The new
system uses one of the blank lines to
transmit captions.
WHEN ABC, NBC, and PBS broad-
cast their first closed-captioned
programs in March, not a single
decoder had been delivered by Sears.
Now, according to Miller, there are
more than 24,000 decoders in use.
When the program started, the three
participating networks were offering a
combined total of 14 hours of captioned
programming each week. NBC and
ABC haven't changed their totals of five
hours apiece, but PBS will have raised
its total to 111%2 hours each week by the
end of September.
Sears, meantime, has just begun of-
fering a color TV set with a built-in
decoder for $519.95. The company also
has agreed to begin selling individual
decoders through its stores instead of
just its catalog.
AND NCI HAS received unexpected
support from various corporations like
Procter & Gamble, AT&T, IBM, and
Polaroid that want to caption their
commercials.
Problems remain, however.
NCI's federal grant will run out in
1982, by which time it must be cap-
tioning enough programs and cbmmer-
cials to be self-sustaining.
ABC and NBC have not decided when,
or by how much, they will increase the
number of programs which they cap-
tion.
a
"- AP Photo
Miniscule minister
Twelve-year-old Thomas Schillinger of Moline, Illinois was ordained a
minister Sunday in services at Calvary's Faith Climber Church. Schillinger,
who says he dislikes disco and rock music because both lead to adultery,
feels his young age is not a deterrant in his profession because he has been
called by God to serve.
Striking AATA employees
to return to work today
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within 48 hours of when the strikers
return to work.
AATA Executive Director Richard
Simonetta said the Board is -confused
about what the employees want. "Their
expectation level is high, and that's OK.
But when they keep changing their
minds over what they're asking for, it
gets confusing."
Simonetta used wage rates to
illustrate his point. "We thought that
the wage issue was settled. But now
that the weekend is over, they raised
the wage issue again," he said in an in-
terview yesterday evening after a day
of discussion with TEU management.
"THE BOARD has a strong belief
that they (TEU members) don't want a
negotiated settlement," he added.
The July 25th contract proposed by
AATA includes a 29 per cent wage in-
crease over the next three years.
The employees' decision to return to
work came on the heels of a Sunday
night meeting at which employees.
rejected the contract proposed by
AATA after around-the-clock
bargaining over the weekend. At that
meeting, however, Kevorkian made
phone calls to Simonetta and Board
Chairman Cecil Ursprung, and the
Board decided to allow for one more
day of "explaining" the new proposal.
"Kevorkian said he needed time to
sell the package," explained Simonet-
ta-
If the employees had voted not to go
back to work, they would have either
had to resign or face being fired by the
AATA, according to Simonetta. "Those
were my orders from the Board," he
said.
Employees present at yesterday's
meeting mentioned lax safety standar-
ds of the AATA as one reason for
dissatisfaction. "It's the riders who get
hurt in this case," said one union mem-
ber. "Right now, if drivers are given a
vehicle that is unsafe, they cannot
reject it or demand repairs be made.
Who loses out then? The rider," he said.
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