Distributors Eagle, Paramount, Madman, Reel, Shock and Sony Universal 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. The Madman title of Your Sister’s Sister was released in Australia without audio description but had audio description for its Region 2 (UK) release.
Apple TV is a digital media receiver that can stream content from the internet to a TV. Users can access music, podcasts, apps, TV shows and movies on iTunes, and surf the web on a TV which has the device connected.
The new rules are included in the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, and came into effect on 30 September 2012. They state that most full-length, non-live programming must be captioned if previously broadcast on television with captions. Monitoring of programming available on Amazon’s ‘Instant Video’ service in October and November showed that between one and eighteen programs a day were not captioned which should have been. They included popular programs such as Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and Fringe.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that from September 30, all television networks must provide captions for the content they put online. This only applies to content that was originally broadcast on TV, as required by the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010.
