Braille Captioned Radio

International Captioned Radio Standard Adopted by ITU

By Cheryl Heppner, 7/6/11

Captioned radio device driving a refreshable electronic Braille device

Just weeks ago NVRC and Hearing Loss Association of America collaborated to round up support for a request that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting provide funding to complete pilot testing of captioned radio in several U.S. cities.  The response from consumer organizations and individual consumers was phenomenal, and we remain hopeful there will be good news about the funding soon.

Meantime we’ve received a boost from another thrilling piece of news.  After two years of discussion and drafting, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has officially adopted the Captioned Radio International Standard.  The standard goes by the name “Digital radio broadcast service, captioned radio” aka ITU-R-BS 1894, and its passage was without opposition by a single one of the 192 member countries in the ITU.

Hurrah for the ITU and keep those fingers crossed for the CPB funding!

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