Hard of Hearing Tune Into Talkies

Charles Beatty Jr. hasn’t been to the movies alone in 20 years, since he lost most of his hearing to a bout of the mumps. With the help of two hearing aids and a decent seat near the middle of the movie theater, he can understand the sound track pretty well.

“But if my wife or sons can’t go, I don’t go,” says Beatty, an audiologist and president of Audiometrics Inc. in Longview, Tex. “I miss enough so that if my wife weren’t there to ask, say, why the actors are laughing, it would take out much of my enjoyment.”

Audiometrics is one of a small number of firms putting the enjoyment into movie-going for the nearly 20 million hearing-impaired children and adults in the United States, through the use of infrared systems that transmit sound to a headset and portable receiver worn around the spectator’s neck.

Introduced in 1979

Infrared sound transmission was first used in theaters in the 1979 Broadway production of Peter Pan, but it did not hit the movies until the late 1980s.

Thanks to companies such as Beatty’s and cinemas such as the Mann Theatres chain, the hearing impaired can now go to selected theaters and enjoy all the nuances of a feature film, from the crunch of feet over gravel to the staccato gunfire of a gang battle.

On June 23, Mann Theatres will open an eight-screen theater in Laguna Niguel complete with what is called an Audex system, bringing its number of enhanced screens to 33. The company opened a nine-theater complex in San Diego last Christmas that uses Audex.

In addition, Cineplex Odeon has several theaters with infrared systems made by other companies. And United Artists has started a pilot program using a system created by Nady Systems of Oakland.

The expense can be great, but theaters are starting to shell out up to $10,000 per screen to make movies more accessible. The reasons are simple: The cinema business is so competitive that a market of millions can’t be ignored. And state governments are starting to insist on accessibility for the handicapped, even when it comes to businesses.

Mann installed Beatty’s Audex system, says Mann advertising director Rich Given, because “we consider this to be the future of the business. It’s highly competitive, both from other theaters and home video.”

Industry experts say California and Florida are the first two states to adopt building regulations demanding that assembly halls open to the general public be equipped with so-called assistive listening devices.

But it hasn’t been an easy battle for the hearing impaired. William Cutler, national president of Self Help for Hard of Hearing People, said three years of intensive lobbying passed before California’s regulations were adopted last January. The regulations go into effect Jan. 1, 1990.

It was hard to persuade businesses to install systems, “because they are paying the bill,” Cutler said. “Our biggest (stumbling) block during the three years it took to get California’s code change were the hotels. They have a good lobbyist, and it took a lot of persuasion to make them realize that a listening system is peanuts compared to the total cost of developing a property.”

Movie theater owners weren’t easy sells, either.

“One of the problems we’re having is convincing theaters that if they put this in they’ll get an increase in customers,” says Beatty, who still can’t attend the theater alone in his home of Longview because “we have had a difficult time getting the movie chains in our areas interested.”

Robert W. Selig, president of the National Assn. of Theatre Owners of California, is slightly dubious about the power of listening devices to increase audience size.

“We’re hoping that the accommodation will bring in people who do have a hearing deficiency,” Selig said. “But there are no statistics developed yet.”

Even though public places have been equipped for wheelchair access for a considerable time, Selig said, “we do not have evidence that all of a sudden people in wheelchairs are rushing to theaters because there is accommodation.”

California’s regulations say all public assembly rooms with public address systems, opening after Jan. 1 and seating 100 or more spectators, must be equipped with some sort of listening system. Existing buildings are exempt unless they are remodeled, said Jud Boies, accessibility and compliance director for the Office of the State Architect.

Backed Off

Boies said his office had hoped to make an even broader sweep through California’s assembly rooms but backed off temporarily “because it’s kind of a new idea and a new technology.”

“We had more people write us who were hearing impaired and had them tell us they want this more than anything we’ve ever done,” Boies said. “It was so amazing to see the excitement in these people. . . . It was a wonderful thing to see. It opens up a whole new world for people with hearing impairments. It changes their lives.”

While the California codes don’t state what kind of system should be installed, they do suggest three sorts, including infrared systems like Beatty’s.

The Audex system provides hearing assistance through the use of a portable personal receiver that is available free at movie box offices. A transmitter is hooked up to the theater’s sound system. The transmitter amplifies the signal as it changes it into infrared light and beams it across the theater.

The infrared is invisible to the human eye and stays within the theater walls, which keeps it from interfering with other presentations in multiplex theaters. The beam is intercepted by a small portable receiver equipped with a lens. The lens converts the light to electrical energy so it can be amplified and delivered to the ears via headphones.

Dennis Singleton, manager of the Mann Grove 9 Theatres in San Diego, is one movie man who does not have to be convinced that the Audex system has increased his audience size.

“I doubt very much that there’s ever a day that goes by that we don’t check them out,” Singleton said.