Ofcom surveyed deaf people with different levels of hearing loss to assess the use and value of current text relay and other services and whether or not new technologies provide better means of communication for Deaf and hearing impaired people.
Key findings of the survey were that:
While the Super Bowl, the NFL’s championship game, has been captioned for years, this will be the first time that captioning on commercials has reached 100%. According to a survey conducted by access advocate Sean Zdenek, 75% of commercials during last year’s Super Bowl were captioned. The Super Bowl is usually the most watched television event of the year in America, with a 30-second advertising spot during it costing US$2.7 in 2010.
John Rafferty, President and CEO of CNIB, said, “The fact that it took a court case to plead for full web accessibility in the first place is bad enough, but to learn that the government plans to spend more time and taxpayer money fighting the court’s ruling is just appalling.”
Robin East, President of the nationwide Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians, echoed these sentiments, saying, “we are outraged by the government’s decision to appeal this landmark decision”.
The initiative would see 1% of all TV ownership transactions from 2010 to 2015 allocated to a not-for-profit fund that would finance the transition to complete accessibility on all distribution platforms.
