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Call to improve TV for hearing and vision impaired

The government is seeking public submissions on ways to improve television for people with hearing or vision impairment.

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subtThe Rudd Government this week called for improvements to electronic media for the hearing and vision impaired.

It is seeking public submissions on ways to improve  television, cinema and other electronic media for people with a hearing or vision impairment.

“Electronic media is an important source of information and entertainment for the entire community and it is important that we work to ensure people with a hearing or vision impairment can access the services they require,” said Senator Stephen Conroy.

“I encourage the media industry, people with a vision and hearing impairment, and representative groups, to continue to actively participate in this investigation about improving access to media services.”

A discussion report, Access to Electronic Media for the Hearing and Vision Impaired: Approaches for Consideration identifies approaches aimed at improved audio description and captioning levels in Australia on free-to-air and subscription television, films in cinemas, DVDs and audio-visual content on the internet.

Further details about the investigation, and how to make submissions, are at www.dbcde.gov.au/mediaaccessdiscussionreport

Submissions close on January 29th 2010.

5 Responses

  2. My dad is almost completely blind and I honestly can’t think of many ways to improve his television experience. I think it comes down to concentration.

    One thing is those graphics that tell you who is speaking during the news. He obviously can’t read them and gets frustrated as the graphic usually only appears once and other people aren’t always paying attention.

    He also gets frustrated with Channel Nine’s cricket commentary, they sometimes go for long periods without mentioning vital information, like the score and the names of the players currently batting or bowling.

  3. Near 100% of US and UK sourced programs are already captioned. Surely the networks should be forced to broadcast captions if the programs were already captioned in the country where they originated. A small number of UK and US programs have a second audio program that contains an audio descriptive service for the blind and visually impaired – the networks should also be forced to broadcast these additional audio tracks where they are available.

    In the US, some programs like CSI: Miami are broadcast with the option of Spanish language, English captiions, and Spanish captions. For the Olympics, NBC has multiple language options.

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