The world's largest movie theater chain is adding open captions at 240 U.S. locations

NPR

21st October 2021

The world's largest movie theater chain is adding open captions at 240 U.S. locations

The world's largest movie theater chain is adding onscreen captions at hundreds of U.S. locations in an effort to make moviegoing more accessible.

AMC Theatres announced last Friday that 240 of its locations — in more than 100 U.S. markets — are adding open captioning to certain showings. The change took effect last week and is aimed at improving the viewing experience for people who have hearing loss and for whom English is not their first language.

"Inclusive programming is core to AMC's strategy, and we're proud to lead the theatrical exhibition industry by making some open caption showtimes available at hundreds of our locations nationwide," Elizabeth Frank, AMC's chief content officer and executive vice president of worldwide programming, said in a statement.

Open captions — similar to subtitles — appear on the screen and cannot be turned off, while closed captioning is displayed on electronic devices that customers must request. The company says the "vast majority" of showtimes will continue to be offered with closed captioning, meaning it will still make assisted listening devices available at all of its locations.

https://www.gpb.org/news/2021/10/21/the-worlds-largest-movie-theater-chain-adding-open-captions-at-240-us-locationshttps