Captions

Ofcom notes that the quality of pre-prepared captions (which are called ‘subtitles’ in the UK) is generally very good, and the majority of complaints it receives are related to live captioning. As caption quotas have risen, so have the number of programs being captioned live. Most of this captioning is now undertaken using speech recognition technology, but this is imperfect and errors are common. 

Following consultation with viewers and representative groups, Ofcom has concluded that the four key dimensions that affect the quality of live captions are:

That compromise is one that allows exhibitors to screen captioned movies across a wide range of sessions where the captions are seemingly ‘open’ to those that are wearing filtering glasses, very similar to 3D glasses. The glasses do not carry projection equipment making them lightweight and less bulky than current captioned cinema eyewear such as Sony’s.

Scott has had a long career in access. He was formerly CEO of the Australian Caption Centre (the not-for-profit organisation from which Media Access Australia grew), and has a long-standing commitment to captions being of the highest possible quality.

In February 2012, Lockrey was summoned for jury service in Lismore Court in northern NSW. He wrote to the court and requested live captioning be provided for him during the trial. After much correspondence, Lockrey was informed that captions would not be provided and that he had been excused from jury service because he is Deaf.

Distributors 20th Century Fox, Accent, Eagle, Gryphon and Madman all had titles released internationally with either captions or subtitles that were not released in Region 4, a market which includes Australia, New Zealand, South America and Oceania.

Further still, both Disney and Icon released titles locally without audio description where this feature was available in international territories. Those movies were Now Is Good from Disney and Beasts of the Southern Wild from Icon.

The titles with both audio description and captions are:

Under current provisions in the Broadcasting Services Act, the only programs which need to be captioned on multichannels are repeats which were originally shown with captions on a network’s primary channel. The survey shows that captioning on the commercial networks’ multichannels remains largely confined to repeats, with some exceptions such as Neighbours, which screens on Eleven, and AFL matches on 7Mate. Overall, the Seven Network’s multichannels, 7Two and 7Mate, had the highest levels of captioning, with over 40% of programs between 6am and midnight being captioned.

Report author Clarizza Fernandez said, "Australia is lagging behind its international counterparts like the UK and the US where there are clear guidelines for displaying 'CC' or 'AD' on EPGs.

"For the Deaf and hearing impaired, the blind and vision impaired, access information is essential and they should not be left out."

In looking into the accessibility of DVDs of programs previously broadcast, it is noteworthy that audio description is not yet broadcast on television as part of a full time service, but captioning has been mandatory under the Broadcasting Services Act for many years. With this in mind, it is perhaps not surprising that the level of audio description on SBS titles is very low at 1%.

In New Zealand, captioning and audio description on the free-to-air networks is funded by NZ On Air, an independent body established by the New Zealand government. It will continue to fund access services after the transition, and staff who currently produce captions and audio description at TVNZ will move to the new organisation.

The Television Access Services: Final report on 2012 also shows that audio description levels are high. While their mandatory quotas are 10%, a number of channels, including ITV1 (in England and Wales), Channel 4, Sky (for its non-sport channels) and the BBC have committed to audio describing 20% of their programs.