This originally appeared in The Tactile Mind Weekly in Trudy’s ON HAND column.
For about two years, I was on a constant high.
I discovered Home & Garden TV (HGTV) a few years ago when Mom, who’s an interior designer, was watching a show that actually was captioned. Within five minutes, I understood why paint jobs and flooring choices matter to people.
I became hooked and couldn’t get enough. Room by Room, Decorating Cents, Designers’ Challenge, and Designing for the Sexes–all captioned! More and more shows came on that were also captioned, like Curb Appeal and Weekend Warriors. I tuned in whenever I could. When TLC began airing Trading Spaces and While You Were Out, I was in heaven. The shows were like comfort food to me–cheery hosts with design experts on hand reassuring viewers that we, too, could make our homes beautiful on a budget.
But the unthinkable seems to be happening. I’ve noticed that, lately, less and less home decorating shows are captioned. New shows on HGTV, like Mission: Organization, aren’t captioned. Even Trading Spaces and While You Were Out aren’t captioned regularly anymore.
With a new house, this has become somewhat of a crisis for me. I like the happiness I get from knowing that I, thankfully, will never do as bad of a job as Hildi does on Trading Spaces. And don’t even get me started on how wonderful Vern Yip is.
Maybe I’ll take the lead of a friend who wrote to the FCC when Court TV didn’t caption programs. Court TV now offers captioning on the majority of its programs, and I’m incredibly grateful for that.
But one thing’s for sure: I’ve learned that I shouldn’t ever take captioning for granted.
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