Ofcom puts disabled in the picture

From: Guardian, UK - Jul 27, 2004

John Plunkett
Tuesday July 27, 2004

The Guardian

Seventy broadcasters will be forced to offer subtitles and audio description for disabled audiences at a combined cost of £37m a year under new rules being brought in by the media regulator Ofcom.

Digital television channels will be required by law to offer subtitles and audio description for people with hearing and visual impairment.

The Royal National Institute for the Deaf said the changes would "dramatically improve the choice of television programmes for millions of deaf and hard of hearing people".

About 50 channels will be required to provide subtitles for at least 80% of their programmes in the next 10 years, including terrestrial channels, Sky sports and movie channels, Sky One, E4 and ITV2.

A second tier of 13 channels - including Living TV and UK Gold - will be required to subtitle just over half of their programmes, while a third group of 10, including Fox Kids and The Hits, will have to subtitle a quarter of their output. Only the five terrestrial channels are required to subtitle programmes at present, although some multichannel providers such as Sky News do so.

Targets for the terrestrial channels are particularly tough, with BBC1 and BBC2 required to subtitle their entire output by 2008. The target for ITV and Channel 4 is 90% by 2010, and for Channel Five 80% by 2008. The RNID said a million viewers rely on subtitled programming, with another 5 million using them on a regular basis.

Ofcom estimated the cost to broadcasters of the commitments will be £37.35m next year, of which about £30m would already have been spent by terrestrial broadcasters maintaining existing commitments.

The total spend will rise over the next 10 years, but the regulator said the benefits to current and potential users of TV was estimated at between £75m and £150m a year.

"Broadcasters and cable providers have already begun to offer some accessibility services to deaf and blind people," said Tim Suter, Ofcom's partner, content and standards. "We welcome this, and look forward to working with industry to extend these services in the years ahead."

Ofcom was given the task of overhauling subtitling, signing and audio description services in the Communications Act.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004