• March 3, 2005

With the Federal Communications Commission mandate that virtually all programming be "closed captioned" by 2006 practically around the corner, Creative Television Marketing (CTM) and VITAC are combining forces to carve out a marketing niche designed to lower the costs for networks and programmers.

The joint venture behind Burbank-based CTM--which acts as a broker of broadcast closed-captioning sponsorships--and Pittsburgh-based VITAC, a closed-captioning provider, is designed to increase the availability of reciprocal trade agreements (RTA) to selected and qualified broadcast and cable networks, as well as program producers.

These RTAs provide the advantage of trading short, non-competitive advertising time in exchange for guaranteed, no-cost captioning services, a CTM spokesman said. Sponsorships include 13 seconds of program content that contains a 10-second spot, which CTM and VITAC say allows for a no-cost solution that fulfills the needs of both the program provider and the advertiser. -- D.K.