Redefining real-time captioning with cutting-edge innovation

The Company

Founded in 1979, National Captioning Institute (NCI) is a pioneer in providing closed captioning services.

NCI serves a diverse clientele, including broadcast networks, streaming platforms, corporate programming, and educational institutions. NCI's mission is to ensure accessibility for all, making media content comprehensible to individuals with hearing impairments or language barriers.

The Challenge

NCI faced increasing demand for captioning, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. They needed a reliable Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) engine to ensure continuous, high-quality captioning services, especially when human captioners were unavailable.

The challenge was to maintain accuracy and reliability while scaling up operations to meet the surge in demand, particularly during live broadcasts and events.

Why Speechmatics?

NCI chose Speechmatics for its superior development and quality - especially for real-time transcription.

Speechmatics' real-time offering allowed NCI to scale its CaptionSentry ASR service efficiently, providing the best available technology to their clients.

Speechmatics stood out due to its robust performance, ability to handle diverse accents and dialects, and its seamless integration capabilities, making it an ideal partner for NCI's advanced captioning needs.

The Solution

NCI was the first traditional captioning provider to introduce ASR as a complement to its human service.

They implemented Speechmatics' speech-to-text API, leveraging its scalability and accuracy and trained a team of Automated Captioning Specialists to monitor the system 24/7, ensuring real-time troubleshooting - a support feature unique to NCI.

Meredith Patterson, Senior VP Operations and COO at NCI, explained:

"Speechmatics’ SaaS offering has enabled us to continue fulfilling our mission of access by allowing NCI to easily scale the use of our proprietary ASR captioning service CaptionSentry.

Although NCI is engine-agile and is committed to using multiple engines as technology evolves and improves, Speechmatics’ SaaS API is currently one of the best options we’ve encountered, and we are very pleased with its results and our partnership." 

This implementation allowed NCI to deliver consistent, high-quality captions, meeting the needs of their clients across various sectors, from live sports events to corporate webinars.

The Results

NCI saw a 21% increase in CaptionSentry usage in 2022 and a 99% increase in 2023.

Over 75% of their ASR captioning hours occurred in the past three years, demonstrating the effectiveness and reliability of Speechmatics' technology.

This partnership has enabled NCI to enhance its service offerings, ensuring accessibility and inclusivity in media content on a global scale.