On this page
Who this is for and what you will be able to decide
This is for court administrators, jury managers, facilities staff and county IT teams who are adding or replacing screens in a jury assembly room. By the end you should be able to settle five things:
- What plays on the jury assembly room TV during the long stretches
- How captions and volume are set
- How staff switch to the juror orientation video and back
- Who controls the screens
- What to require from a commercial provider
A jury assembly room is not an ordinary waiting room. People are there because a summons told them to be. Many arrive early in the morning, and some stay until late afternoon without being called. The room also has a job a lobby does not: the jury office has to be able to address everyone at once, at any moment, and every screen has to step aside when it does. Good planning starts there.
Map the juror's day before you pick programming
Plan by phase rather than by screen. Most jury rooms follow a similar sequence, and each phase asks something different of the TVs.
| Phase | What the room needs | What the screens should do |
|---|---|---|
| Check-in | Lines move and staff give directions | Quiet, captioned general programming or a welcome slide, with no audio |
| Orientation | Every juror sees and hears the same message | All screens on the court's orientation video, with audio up and captions on |
| The long wait | Calm, low-effort distraction for hours | Neutral programming, captions on, audio low or off |
| Panel calls | Every name or number heard clearly | Audio muted instantly; the picture can keep running |
| Lunch and breaks | Room half empty, people coming and going | The same neutral default; nothing that has to be followed start to finish |
| Release | Final instructions | Screens muted or switched to an instructions slide |
A heavy calendar morning might bring several panel calls in quick succession. A slow day might bring one call, or none. Either way, the screens need a default state that staff can leave alone, plus two fast moves: mute and switch to orientation.
Choosing neutral programming for jurors
Neutral is the word that matters most. Jurors come from every part of the community, may sit in the room for most of a day, and may soon be asked to decide a case fairly. Many courts treat what is on these screens as part of the court's environment. The safest default is programming that carries no opinion and has no connection to anything that could come before the court. Your presiding judge or jury administrator should set the policy. The comparison below helps frame the choices.
| Content type | Fit for a jury room | Honest trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Nature, travel, scenic | Strong | Calm and readable without sound, but it can feel repetitive over a full day |
| Cooking and lifestyle | Strong | Broad, light appeal; some shows lean on dialogue, so captions matter |
| Classic comedies and family programming | Good | Familiar and gentle; confirm the content stays family-appropriate |
| Weather | Situational | Useful on storm days; keep it to weather, not general news |
| Live news, talk and opinion | Generally avoid | Unpredictable content, including crime and court coverage; discuss with the bench before allowing it |
| Crime dramas and courtroom shows | Avoid | May color how people picture a trial, and the tone is wrong for prospective jurors |
| Live sports | Use with care | Pulls a crowd to one screen and invites loud reactions in a room that needs to stay quiet |
Some practical points:
- Pick for the last hour of the day, not the first ten minutes. Content that loops quickly gets noticed. Favor long-form programming so a juror who has been there since morning is not watching the same segment a third time.
- Mix screens in a large room. In a big assembly hall, two or three neutral channels on different screens let people choose where to sit without anyone reaching for a remote.
- Write the approved list down. A short list of channels signed off by the court ends hallway debates and makes it easy for a new clerk to restore the room.
If your courthouse also has public lobbies, clerk counters or self-help centers, the same neutrality applies with a few differences. Our guide to government lobby TV programming covers those spaces.
Captions, volume and the panel call
Captions on by default
Leave closed captions on for every screen during the wait. People read, work on laptops and doze, and captions let anyone follow the picture without adding noise. They also help jurors who are hard of hearing or who follow written English more easily than spoken English. Whether captions are required in your building is a question for your court's accessibility coordinator or counsel; as a practical matter, turning them on costs the room nothing. For how caption settings behave across commercial screens, see our piece on keeping closed captions on.
Captions only help if the back row can read them. If the far seats sit a long way from the nearest screen, match screen size to seating distance before you buy anything.
A low ceiling for audio
During the long wait, most jury rooms do best with TV audio off or very low. Set a volume ceiling on each display where the equipment allows it, and keep physical remotes with staff rather than on a side table.
The mute step for panel calls
The panel call is the moment the room exists for. When the jury office calls names or numbers, nothing should compete with the announcement. Decide in advance how audio drops:
- Manual mute. A clerk mutes from a remote kept at the desk. Simple, but someone has to remember every single time.
- Room control system. A wall panel or control software mutes every display with one button. More dependable across many screens, but it adds installation scope.
- Audio off all day. Screens run on captions only, so announcements never compete. The simplest option, at the cost of a quieter, more passive room.
The right choice depends on room size and staffing. A small room with one clerk and two screens can live with option one. A large hall with many screens and rotating staff usually benefits from option two.
Switching to the orientation video and back
Most courts show a juror orientation video at the start of the day. This is where many rooms stumble: a clerk hunts for the right input, one screen stays on a cooking show, and the audio comes from the wrong place.
Treat the switch as a short, repeatable routine:
- Fix the source. The video may play from a media player, a PC or a network link. Whatever it is, give it a permanent, labeled input on every screen, or route it through a distribution system so one action sends it everywhere.
- Name an owner. One role, typically the jury clerk on duty, owns the switch, with a written backup.
- Make the return as easy as the switch. After the video, the room should go back to the approved default channel and caption setting without anyone re-entering settings.
- Rehearse before the first summons day. Run the whole sequence: default, orientation with audio, mute for a panel call, back to default. Check it from the back row as well as the front.
- Keep the video current. When the court updates its orientation content, confirm the new version actually reaches the player.
If a judge sometimes gives welcome remarks, the same input plan can carry a camera or microphone feed. Raise that with your installer early, because it affects wiring.
Courthouses with a main assembly hall, an overflow room and a quiet room benefit from the zone-first approach in our multi-zone TV planning guide. The setting is different, but the principle carries over: decide what each area shows, where its audio comes from and who controls it.
Common jury assembly room TV mistakes
- Defaulting to live news. It feels informative, but the content is unpredictable and can drift into exactly the coverage a court would rather jurors not see.
- Leaving remotes in the room. Within a week someone changes the channel, raises the volume or turns captions off.
- Assuming any TV account will do. Consumer plans are typically set up for private viewing rather than public spaces. Confirm with your provider that the account type matches commercial or government use in a public building before screens go live.
- Having one person who knows the orientation switch. The morning that person is out is the morning it fails.
- Too few or too small screens. A single screen at one end of a long room leaves the back rows squinting at captions they cannot read.
- No plan for storm days. On closure or severe-weather days, the court may want weather on one screen. Decide who makes that call in advance; our note on business TV during severe weather lays out a simple approach.
What to ask a commercial TV provider
Bring these questions to any provider conversation:
- Is the account set up for a public government building? Ask how the account is configured and confirm the viewing type matches the way the room is used.
- Which neutral programming options are available, and can the lineup change later? Programming shifts over time, and you want flexibility without a full re-install.
- Can captions, volume limits and default channels be locked on each receiver or display?
- How will the orientation video and other inputs be integrated, and what will the switching routine look like for staff?
- Who installs, and who supports the system after go-live? Ask about technician coverage near your courthouse and how support requests are handled.
- How are multi-building or county-wide projects managed? If you run several courthouses, ask who your contacts will be and how planning and support are handled across sites.
- What does procurement need? Government buyers often have contract vehicles and documentation requirements, so ask how the provider handles quotes and paperwork.
Sports Direct | DLM Media is an authorized commercial dealer headquartered in Phoenix, AZ, offering commercial TV for business and government facilities, with 30+ years of expertise and technicians and engineers in all 50 states. You can review the full scope of programming, equipment, installation and support, reach our government team at 888-380-4133, or talk with a programming specialist.