In the captioning business for 26 years.
Closed Caption Services (CCS) is an agile, family-owned, business providing fast, reliable service in closed captioning, offline captioning, live caption, web captioning and described video.
The company was founded in 1994 by Larry Gavin, after a successful career as a respected director, producer, and host for numerous broadcasters across the country. Mr. Gavin’s daughter, Brooke Woboditsch, was named president of CCS in 2016 after having served as General Manager for over 10 years.
In the beginning, CCS provided closed captioning services to CHUM Television’s new CityTv stations, as well as their network of “A Channels”. Building on our success with CHUM, we acquired captioning business with Rogers, CTV (now Bell), NewCap, S-Vox, Cogeco Television (Kingston and Peterborough), Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, Pattison Group, TVO, and more.
CCS is now one of Canada’s most recognized media accessibility companies in the television broadcast industry.
Staying Current
The demand and regulation in the field of accessible programming, and the expectations of quality and accuracy in captioning, is at an all time high. Staying current is a must, and we do this through a constant review of the latest advances and news in the the world of media accessibility, review mandates from regulators, and ensure that we are always delivering the highest standards of excellence in the business.
Brooke Woboditsch, President of CCS, was a member of the 2016 Work Group comprised of broadcasters, captioning user advocacy groups, captioning providers and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. The 2016 Working Group tested alternative methods to measure the captioning accuracy, with a view to improving the quality. The Working Group submitted their recommendation to the CRTC in November of 2018, and proposed that the NER Method which was adapted to Canadian standards, be adopted.
Through staff membership in SMPTE, attendance at the annual NAB Shows (Las Vegas and New York City) and CCW, CCS stays up to date with emerging technologies in anticipation of client requirements. Lately, CCS has developed solutions for HTML.5 video protocol, particularly in regards to the closed captioning component (WEBVTT format, which is expected to become the industry standard for internet and mobile devices). CCS is also proactively working with closed captioning software developers to improve end user experience and eliminate coding “bugs”.