PHOTO: Audio captions are displayed on a TV screen Aug. 3 during the live broadcast of a City Council meeting on Vtv15, a cable channel operated by the City of Victoria Communications & Public Affairs.
Residents now have the option to view closed captioning during public meetings on the City of Victoria’s municipal TV channel, Vtv15.
“One of the longstanding goals of Communications & Public Affairs is to share information with as wide of an audience as possible,” said Ashley Strevel, director of Communications & Public Affairs for the City of Victoria. “Recent emergencies demonstrated the importance of advancing the City’s communications strategy to reach all of Victoria. We hope more residents will tune in to our channel as a result of this change.”
Captioning is available during live and recorded public meetings on cable channels 15 and 115 and is also live online at www.victoriatx.gov/vtv15.
Meetings can also be replayed with captions at www.victoriatx.gov/agendas or on YouTube at Victoria Texas Public Meetings.
The new closed captioning service uses human-assisted transcription. Captions can be turned on using the closed caption settings on residents’ TVs.
Communications & Public Affairs continues its efforts to extend its messaging to hard-to-reach populations. Some of the department’s efforts during the past year include using an American Sign Language interpreter for press briefings and a COVID-19 public service announcement, producing a COVID-19 PSA in Spanish and posting to social media in Spanish during emergencies.
In addition to public meetings, Vtv15 includes a variety of programming focused on local government, education, history and the arts. To learn more, visit www.victoriatx.gov/vtv15. To provide suggestions about programming, visit www.victoriatx.gov/survey.