Policy and expectations
What you can expect on free-to-air television
Due to agreements made between the Australian Human Rights Commission and Free TV Australia, the major broadcasters provide a significant level of captioning. 85% of 6.00 am to midnight programming must be captioned on the major channels, including all news and current affairs programming and all programming from 6.00 pm to 10.30 pm (prime time).
In May 2012 the Federal Government released the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Improved Access to Television Services) Bill 2012 (PDF and Word versions of this can be download from the DBCDE website). This outlines changes to the Broadcasting Services Act that it will require 100% of 6.00 am to midnight programming to be captioned by 2015.
However, digital multichannels (such as 7mate, Go!, and Eleven) only have to caption a program if it was shown with captions on its parent channel earlier, or if it is simulcast on the parent channel with captions. This may change at the end of 2012, when the Government has flagged a review of the multichannel rules.
The Federal Government has also announced that it will have a trial of audio description on ABC1 in the second half of 2011 for 14 hours per week for 3 months. This will be a technical trial to work out how and if audio description could be delivered on television in the future.
For more detailed information, see our page on the regulation of free-to-air television captioning.
Subscription television
There is currently no legislation requiring subscription television to provide access services (either captions or audio description). However, a series of agreements brokered by the Australian Human Rights Commission have led to over 50 channels on FOXTEL and AUSTAR providing some captioning, although levels of captioning on these channels vary considerably.
In May 2012, a new agreement by the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association (ASTRA, the body which represents the subscription television industry) was announced, endorsed by the Australian Human Rights Commission, which will see increased captioning levels to 2015.
The Federal Government has announced that it will move to require subscription television to provide access services similar to the major free-to-air channels this year.
For more detailed information, see our page on the regulation of subscription television captioning.
