Radio Reading Services for the Blind

There is a radio service out there that few people are aware of – there are a number of communities that have a service where the local newspaper is read to the blind.   In most cases, this is transmitted using a subcarrier of an existing FM station, which means you need a special receiver that can only hear the reading service.

I was going through the list of new radio licenses and found where a Low Power FM (LPFM) station in Massachusetts was upgraded to a full FM station.   The service streams so you can listen to the service.

My father was blind and had one of these receivers.   While a well meaning idea, it’s fundamentally flawed.   When a sighted person reads a newspaper, you don’t read every article from beginning to end in order.   You read headlines, and “fast forward” to the next story.   If you start to read a story and lose interest, you skip to the next thing you’re interested in.   You don’t spend 18 hours every day just to read the morning paper.

As you listen, it’s also interesting to see how well trained the readers are (or not).  When reading a news story, it is a challenge to read the story and not inject your own opinion about what you’re reading just by the inflections and emphasis in your voice.

http://ticnetwork.org/

To listen:

http://tic1.b2netsolutions.com:8000/listen.pls

Over time, these services have tried to broaden their potential listenership to include not only the blind but anyone who can’t read a newspaper (like people who never learned to read)