Conducted by the Australian Institute, the survey showed that out of the 1294 respondents, 94% said they were aware of captioning, 30% said they sometimes used it and 3% said they always used the service when watching television.
The Association plays a vital role in ensuring Australian DVD and Blu-ray products are released with captions and audio description. AHEDA has worked with consumer groups, Media Access Australia and the Australian Human Rights Commission since 2006 to improve access levels, and continues an educational campaign to members to encourage the importation of titles with access features and the local production of titles with access features.
The popular programs Emmerdale and Coronation Street are currently captioned on the service, and ITV has said that it intends to extend captioning to 70% of programs on it. Captions (which are called subtitles in the UK) are activated by pushing the ‘S’ button at the bottom of the screen. Programs on the ITV Player are only available to UK viewers.
The BBC launched captions on its catch-up service, the iPlayer, in 2008, while in Australia the ABC’s iView has had all prime-time programs captioned since March 2010.
Starting with two blockbuster movies in True Grit and The King's Speech, Reading Cinemas Charlestown, in the suburbs of Newcastle NSW, becomes the first Reading location to show closed capti
