Amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act passed last year introduced captioning requirements for subscription TV services.
Fetch TV has requested exemptions for the following 21 channels:
The amendments, which were passed by the Senate in June, introduce quotas for subscription TV providers such as FOXTEL. These will increase incrementally and will range from 5% on music channels to 75% for movie channels by 1 July 2014.
Captioning quotas for free-to-air television will also increase incrementally to one hundred per cent of programming between 6 am and midnight by 2014. News and current affairs programs must be captioned no matter what time of day they are broadcast.
“It’s another step towards access,” said SKY spokesperson Kirsty Way in a media release. “SKY will continue to work towards launching captioning for even more SKY channels and will apply to NZ ON Air funding to make captioning available on Prime.” (Prime is a free-to-air channel which is also available through SKY.)
Kinect is a motion sensor device that is used with the video games console Xbox 360. The motion sensor allows users to interact with video games using their voice and body. As well as a video games console, Xbox 360 provides access to music, television shows, movies and Foxtel programs.
By using Foxtel’s service through Xbox 360 Kinect, users are able to pause, play, rewind and navigate menu items by speaking and using their hands to make gestures, providing those who are vision impaired with an alternative to using a remote control.
