VITAC is a

Canonsburg, Pennsylvania Canonsburg is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Washington County, Pennsylvania, southwest of Pittsburgh. Canonsburg was laid out by Colonel John Canon in 1789 and incorporated in 1802. The population was 9,735 at the 2020 census. The town li ...

-based provider of audio transcription services. It provides services such as

closed captioning Closed captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information. Both are typically used as a transcription of the audio por ...

dubbing Dubbing (re-recording and mixing) is a post-production process used in filmmaking and video production, often in concert with sound design, in which additional or supplementary recordings are lip-synced and "mixed" with original production sou ...

, and

audio description Audio description, also referred to as a video description, described video, or more precisely called a visual description, is a form of narration used to provide information surrounding key visual elements in a media work (such as a film or te ...

services. The company has over 700 employees, with clients ranging from

broadcast network A terrestrial network (or broadcast network in the United States) is a group of radio stations, television stations, or other electronic media outlets, that form an agreement to air, or broadcast, content from a centralized source. For example, ...

s, to

government agencies A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administratio ...

and educational institutions.

History

VITAC was incorporated in March 1986 in Pittsburgh as American Data Captioning, Inc. It sold services under the name CaptionAmerica, and in 1993 changed its name to VITAC, an acronym for “VITal ACcess,” which refers to all services that make mass media accessible. VITAC has been continuously providing closed captioning services since 1986. In 2000, VITAC was sold to Word Wave, Inc. In 2006, Word Wave, Inc. was acquired by Merrill Corporation. In August 2012, VITAC acquired Closed Captioning Services. In 2016

The Gores Group The Gores Group is a private equity firm specializing in acquiring and partnering with mature and growing businesses. The company was founded in 1987 by its CEO and chairman, Alec Gores, Alec E. Gores. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, wi ...

, a global private equity firm specializing in acquiring and partnering with mature and growing businesses, acquired VITAC. In 2017, VITAC acquired Caption Colorado, which was founded in 1991 and expanded to become the second-largest captioning company in the United States with a focus on regional and local newscasts. In 2020, VITAC acquired VITAC Canada (formerly SOVO Technologies), a Montréal, Canada-based provider of captioning and transcription services known for their artificial intelligence and speech recognition technology. In 2021, VITAC was acquired by the Israeli company Verbit; the company stated that the purchase would combine VITAC with its AI-based transcription platform to "harness decades of transcription and captioning expertise to offer customers a best-in-class solution based on our proven technology". It then acquired U.S. Captioning in May 2022.

Headquarters and Offices

VITAC operates out of offices in

Greenwood Village, Colorado The City of Greenwood Village is a home rule municipality located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 15,691 at the 2020 United States Census. Greenwood Village is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Met ...

, and

Montréal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pea ...

, as well as the hundreds of home offices of realtime captioners all over the country.

Advocacy

From 2007 to 2010, VITAC campaigned with the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT) on the

Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 The Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (CVAA) is a United States accessibility law. Signed on October 8, 2010, by then-president Barack Obama, the bill amended the Communications Act of 1934 to include updated ...

. The company served on the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) Video Programming Accessibility Advisory Committee for benchmarking captioning TV shows via IP from 2010-2012, and was appointed by the FCC to help create a Closed Caption Quality Best Practices guide in 2014. From 2016-2020, VITAC served on the FCC’s Disability Advisory Committee, a group formed to provide advice and recommendations to the commission on a wide variety of disability issues.

References

https://www.nad.org/resources/civil-rights-laws/communications-act/coalition-of-organizations-for-accessible-technology/

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vitac 1986 establishments in Pennsylvania Mass media companies established in 1986 2000 mergers and acquisitions 2012 mergers and acquisitions 2016 mergers and acquisitions 2017 mergers and acquisitions 2020 mergers and acquisitions 2021 mergers and acquisitions 2022 mergers and acquisitions Companies based in Washington County, Pennsylvania Deaf culture in the United States

History

Headquarters and Offices

Advocacy

See also

References

External links