VITAC is one of the United States' largest closed captioning and media access companies. The company is headquartered in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, with additional facilities in Washington, D.C. and North Hollywood, California. The company captions over 170,000 hours of programming each year for over 400 customers, including CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and Discovery Communications. The company has captioned the Olympics. VITAC [1] is a division of Merrill Corporation and employs 250 people.
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VITAC was founded in 1986 as CaptionAmerica, a small company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with one captioning contract for KDKA local news and a huge commitment to develop closed captioning services and solutions.
By 1993, CaptionAmerica had become the country's largest, for-profit captioning company and had broadened its focus. To reflect the change, a new corporate identity was selected. The new name, VITAC (for VITal ACcess), reflected the company's recent growth into new markets, including video description and subtitling.[1]
Viewers who benefit from captioning and other accessibility solutions do not often pay for the service. Captioning is a valuable service for the one in ten Americans who are deaf or hard of hearing and viewers watching television in noisy environments. The service helps young children develop reading skills, and is a valuable learning tool for those learning English as a second language.
In 2008, VITAC launched CaptionsON, a public information campaign detailing the benefits of closed captioning. The website associated with the campaign provides advice to viewers with caption problems and contact information for many networks.
VITAC is a member of the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology, COAT, and a coalition of over 240 national, regional, state, and community-based disability organizations. COAT advocates for legislative and regulatory safeguards that will ensure full access by people with disabilities to evolving high speed broadband, wireless and other Internet Protocol (IP) technologies. Part of this initiative is the introduction of new legislation, HR3101.[2][3]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has appointed three VITAC employees to serve a two-year term on the Video Programming and Emergency Access Advisory Committee (VPEAAC), an advisory committee required by the Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (the Accessibility Act). [4] [5]
VITAC is the nation’s largest provider of real-time captioning for nationally broadcast programs. Competitors include Caption Colorado, CaptionMax, National Captioning Institute, Video Caption Corporation, WGBH, and Soundwriters, among others.