AMERICAN EXPERIENCE "THE PRESIDENTS" DOWNLOADS ON ITUNES U
ACCESSIBLE TO
EXPANDED AUDIENCE
Closed Captioning and Video Description Offered as Options
Boston, MA. September 16, 2008. PBS' American Experience is offering
free downloads of six of its award-winning Presidential biographies
for educational use. As the 2008 election heats up, closed captioned
biographies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson,
Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan -- more than 23 hours
of programming -- are available on the American Experience "The
Presidents" web site (pbs.org/presidents) and on Apple's on iTunes
U, a
section of the iTunes Store showcasing free educational offerings
from
WGBH and top universities.
"Our iTunes U collaboration with Apple is an effective platform for
reaching our existing audience and attracting new viewers," says
Annie
Valva, WGBH Interactive's director of Research and Business
Development. WGBH's digital reach is further expanded by the
pioneering work of WGBH's Media Access Group. Annie notes, "Within an
hour of posting one American Experience film to iTunes U we heard
from
a user who told us how much he and his wife depend on our captioned
material. Before we even had a chance to upload all the films, the
user wrote back telling us, "I was on a quick plane trip and I was
watching the Carter series on both the outbound and return
flights. . . which I could not complete because of interruptions by
other passengers who wanted to know about the iPhone and especially
the show!"
Making history in another way, the Roosevelt biography is the first
online video program to be offered as a download with a Descriptive
Video Service® (DVS®) track, which makes video more accessible to
viewers who are blind or have low vision via narration of key visual
elements, inserted into pauses in dialogue. American Experience is
closed captioned and described for broadcast by WGBH's Media Access
Group (access.wgbh.org) for the nation's 36 million viewers with
hearing or vision loss.
According to Larry Goldberg, director of Media Access at WGBH, "While
virtually all broadcast and cable programs are closed captioned, and
many air with video description as well, only a few programs that
migrate to the web do so with these important access features intact.
We are thrilled that American Experience has succeeded in including a
large audience, numbering in excess of 36 million potential users
with
sensory disabilities, in "The Presidents" online initiative. Apple
is
to be congratulated for its leadership in making web-based,
downloadable video accessible."
For more information on access features for web-based video, either
creating captioning and description or making sure these features are
included when video is repurposed for the web, contact the Media
Access Group at WGBH,
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
The free program downloads will be available until Inauguration Day,
January 20, 2009.
ABOUT THE MEDIA ACCESS GROUP AT WGBH
The Media Access Group is a nonprofit service of Boston public
broadcaster WGBH, with offices in Boston and Los Angeles. The Group
includes DVS, which has made television, film and video more
enjoyable
to audiences who are blind or visually impaired since 1990, and The
Caption Center-- the world's first captioning agency-- which has made
audiovisual media accessible to audiences who are deaf or hard of
hearing since 1972. The third branch of the Media Access Group, the
Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media at
WGBH (NCAM), is a research, development and outreach organization
that
works to make existing and emerging technologies accessible to all
audiences. Members of the Group's collective staff represent the
leading resources and experts in their fields.
ABOUT AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
Television's most-watched history series, American Experience has
been
hailed as "peerless" (Wall Street Journal), "the most consistently
enriching program on television" (Chicago Tribune), and "a beacon of
intelligence and purpose" (Houston Chronicle). On air and online, the
series brings to life the incredible characters and epic stories that
have shaped America's past and present. Acclaimed by viewers and
critics alike, American Experience documentaries have been honored
with every major broadcast award, including twenty-four Emmy Awards,
four duPont-Columbia Awards, and fourteen George Foster Peabody
Awards, one most recently for Two Days in October.
ABOUT WGBH BOSTON
WGBH Boston is America's preeminent public broadcasting producer.
More
than one-third of PBS's prime-time lineup and companion Web content
as
well as many public radio favorites are produced by WGBH. The station
also is a pioneer in educational multimedia and in access
technologies
for people with disabilities. For more information visit wgbh.org.
For more information about American Experience and The Presidents
visit pbs.org/americanexperience
September 16, 2008
Contact
Mary Watkins
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Media Access Group at WGBH
617 300-3700 voice
617 300-2489 TTY
