Video accessibility for Live TV and PEG broadcast stations
You simulcast council and board meetings across cable, web, and social. Cities and school districts look to your station for guidance. PEG funding and public-entity accessibility obligations need a plan that fits your AV stack and budget cycle.
Challenges you and other station directors face
Simulcast complexity
One meeting may feed the cable headend, your website, and YouTube or social at the same time. Live captions and post-production remediation must cover every destination residents actually watch. New staff may caption one output but miss others without clear training and tooling.
Fiscal stewardship
Directors report a duty to re-evaluate captioning and accessibility vendors every 3 to 5 years and understand current pricing and technology before renewing a contract.
Funding uncertainty
PEG subscriber fees, capital versus operating buckets, and whether captioning is OpEx or bundled into council chamber AV upgrades is unclear without franchise-specific guidance.
Your cable feed may be exempt. Your web simulcast is not.
PEG channels are largely not FCC-licensed broadcasters. Cable operators hold the license, and PEG carriage is often exempt from FCC broadcaster caption-percentage thresholds. That is not the compliance story that matters for most stations today.
When the same meeting hits your website, YouTube, or social channels, public-entity accessibility rules apply. WCAG 2.1 Level AA requires captions and transcripts for time-based media. Federal ADA Title II deadlines (April 2027 for populations of 50,000 or more, April 2028 for smaller jurisdictions) give you a defensible budget line even where cable carriage rules differ.
Colorado station director?
Colorado public entities face active enforcement under HB21-1110 and C.R.S. §24-34-802. See our Colorado PEG landing page and PEG funding guide for state-specific compliance and budget guidance.
Recommended first step: run a video library audit that itemizes uncaptioned live streams and VOD gaps, estimates remediation cost, and gives you numbers to take to your franchise administrator or budget office. Franchise agreements vary; confirm PEG fund use with your city or county franchise administrator.
Live captioning for council and board simulcasts
Software-only over RTMP
Live captioning requires a dedicated RTMP audio stream from the encoder you already operate in chambers. Recap does not supply caption encoder hardware. Our engineers provide setup guides so the feed works with your existing AV path.
See the full setup walkthrough on our local government live captioning section.
Three accuracy tiers
- AI-powered for work sessions and informal meetings
- AI with live human editing for council, commission, and public hearings
- Professional CART for high-stakes proceedings and formal accommodation requests
Deliver captions to YouTube Live, a QR-friendly live caption viewer for in-chamber display, or your website embed. Often compared to Cablecast and MediaScribe: those platforms frequently bundle dedicated caption encoder hardware or charge separate license and rental fees. Recap pricing is software-only.
VOD captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions
Post-meeting archives
Refresh VOD captions on replays published to your website or YouTube. Searchable transcripts with speaker attribution for staff and residents.
Broadcast deliverables
Export SCC and other formats where your workflow needs CEA-608 or CEA-708 deliverables. See supported formats.
Audio descriptions
Standard and extended audio descriptions for planning sessions, community programming, and council presentations with slides or maps.
Stations are often the regional broadcasting leader. Cities and school districts ask you to recommend accessibility approaches. Recap supports your station workflow and downstream municipal clients through local government solutions and City Transcripts.
How directors fund live and archived accessibility
PEG subscriber fees
- Collected through cable franchise agreements for Public, Educational, and Government access channels.
- Capital (CapEx) vs operating (OpEx): many agreements restrict PEG dollars to capital equipment. Ongoing captioning service is often OpEx. Ask your franchise administrator for the current balance and permitted uses.
- Council chamber AV upgrades: encoder, switcher, or audio-path improvements that enable a reliable RTMP feed may qualify as capital in some franchises. Captioning subscription itself is typically operating. Upgrade the pipe once (CapEx), run captioning and audio description as a service (OpEx).
ADA compliance budget lines
Use federal ADA Title II deadlines and applicable state law as a defensible FY budget justification for accessibility remediation deferred in prior cycles. PEG funding may be applicable depending on franchise language; it is not guaranteed for every captioning expense.
Audit-first procurement
- Run a gap analysis through our video library audit or YouTube compliance study
- Receive an itemized estimate for live and VOD remediation
- Match line items to PEG CapEx, PEG OpEx where allowed, or general fund / ADA compliance allocation
Responsible vendor review every 3 to 5 years
Re-evaluating captioning vendors on a regular cycle is responsible public stewardship, not disloyalty to incumbents. Technology and pricing change quickly. A side-by-side quote on one council simulcast is a low-risk way to learn what is available today.
Recap Innovations
- Software-only; RTMP ingest from your existing encoder
- Live captioning, VOD captions, and audio descriptions on one platform
- Per-minute and package pricing; no caption encoder hardware line item
Common comparisons (Cablecast, MediaScribe)
Often bundle dedicated caption encoder hardware or charge separate license and rental fees on top of captioning service. Compare total cost of ownership, not just the per-hour caption rate.
Map your simulcast and funding path in one call
Bring your station director, AV engineer, or franchise administrator. We will walk through RTMP and encoder setup, live caption tiers, and audit options for your channel lineup.
Ready to make your videos accessible?
Your compliance deadline isn't moving. Your timeline can. Give your accessibility working groups the single point solution they need for all videos needing accessibility remediation.