Global Accessibility Awareness Day
Imagine, if you will, a life without the ability to
fully understand what is being said on
television, in videos, on the telephone
We Need Words To Achieve Access
Today members of the New Zealand Captioning Working Group will submit a petition with more than 2,300 signatures asking
“That the House of Representatives legislate to ensure accessibility via closed captioning for Deaf, Hard of Hearing and
other New Zealanders who need it, to access all broadcast, online and video mediums”.
The petition will be presented to Mojo Mathers, Green MP on Global Accessibility Awareness Day.
This petition highlights the inaccessibility to broadcast media caused by the lack of captioning which enables access. A
blaring example of the inaccessibility was the 2015 Rugby World Cup, where many games that were broadcast on free to air
Prime TV (owned by Sky TV) were not captioned. This was also the subject of a complaint to the New Zealand Human Rights
Commission by the Captioning Working Group.
Mrs. Louise Carroll, Chairperson of the Captioning Working Group and Chief Executive of The National Foundation for the
Deaf said in a statement “This is not about just about access to the Rugby or the latest sporting event attracting New
Zealanders attention, it’s about a large group of New Zealanders being marginalised as they are not offered inclusion
through access. In a 21st century digital society inclusion for all New Zealanders really does matter”.
There is no legislation in New Zealand requiring broadcasters and video on demand providers to provide captioning.
New Zealand is light-years behind Australia where TV stations are required to broadcast with captioning on all primary
channels between the hours of 6am and midnight seven days a week. ABCiView in Australia offers captioning. The United
States has had captioning legislation for decades with very strict compliance rules and exception processes that have
been tested. TV catch up services provide captioning and content previously aired on US television must include
captioning when made available online. The United Kingdom and much of Europe require broadcasters to caption. BBCiPlayer
is considered a world leader in accessibility. In Canada all TV adverts and promotions must also carry captioning by
law.
But, in New Zealand:
• Only 1 news television programme has captioning (One News)
• No news is captioned on any channel between 11pm and 12 noon the following day and many morning television programmes
including Breakfast on TVNZ and the Paul Henry Show on TV3 air without captions
• Only Television New Zealand supports live captioning (captioning produced real time as a live programme goes to air)
so programmes aired live on other channels are inaccessible to Deaf & Hard of Hearing New Zealanders unless a repeat is aired later with captions
• The National Foundation for the Deaf has stepped up and is underwriting the cost of ensuring captioning of live
broadcasts can be provided by Prime
• In the rapidly developing Television On Demand & Video On Demand services (subscription or free/advertiser funded) no New Zealand based service offers captioning
(including TVNZ On Demand, 3Now, Sky Go, Lightbox, NEON). Captioning is only available on Netflix
• TVNZ launched the first on demand service in Australasia in 2007 but to date, no captions have been made available
despite frequent upgrades by the broadcaster and the service being available on many platforms and devices.
Without captions watching the news, a current affairs programme, the latest drama, movie or reality TV programme,
becomes an exhausting and confusing lip reading challenge. Without captions, many Deaf and Hard of Hearing people simply
turn off. Some with the knowledge probably use technology to illegally source accessible content from overseas. Others
feel isolated and left out of conversations.
As highlighted in the New Zealand Government Convergence documents the “nature of how New Zealanders communicate, do
business, and access information and entertainment is changing rapidly in the contemporary digital environment”. But do
consumers in New Zealand that need access to captions, benefit from this “increased choice and accessibility”?
To date the government position has been to encourage broadcasters and other content providers to improve accessibiilty
for deaf and hard of hearing people. But, this has not worked to any great extent and the access gap is broadening as
more non-captioned services are coming online. Accordingly, the Captioning Working Group is calling on the Government to
strengthen obligations on broadcasters and video on demand service providers to provide accessibility to Deaf and Hard
of Hearing New Zealanders.
Progress in improvements in broadcast captioning over the last decade (starting from a low base) have been welcomed by
the group however these are not keeping pace with growth in broadcast and video on demand services. Recent significant
upgrades of TVNZs On Demand service or the launch of Lightbox failed to provide any captioned accessibility. Additional
funding provided by NZ On Air to enable pre-recorded captions on Prime Television late last year is a progressive step,
however Deaf & Hard of Hearing New Zealanders want to be able to watch what they want, when they want the same as all New Zealanders.
“Twenty percent of New Zealanders Watch TV via Television and Online”.
Despite the growth of online media, traditional television remains important to a wide cross section of the community
and particularly people over the age of 65 who are three times more likely to have hearing loss than younger adults.
Captioned accessibility is important across the spectrum of television and on demand services.
The Captioning Working Group also note the explosion of video content in traditional “newspaper” or “radio” outlets
online services and the prolific use video in social media as traditional distribution methods for television and radio
lose viewers to online audiences. To date, New Zealand companies have been slow to embrace the benefits of captioning
this content something the group would like to see change.
The Captioning Working Group were unsuccessful in obtaining live captions for the Rugby World Cup in 2015, yet have been
actively seeking live captions for the Rio Olympics this year.
The New Zealand Captioning Working Group (CWG) is a collaboration of Deaf Aotearoa, The National Foundation for the Deaf
and the Hearing Association New Zealand and have been working together for 4 years to improve media accessibility across
the Deaf and Hard of Hearing communities.
Captions are similar to subtitles that are seen on a foreign language programme, but the text is shown in the same
language as the spoken audio. They also include descriptive text for sound effects like “door slamming”, “gunshots
fire”, song lyrics or may simply say “silence” when there is no sound. Closed Captions (CC) are turned on using a button
on a TV remote control or by choosing an option on a phone, tablet or computer.
References
Content Regulation in a Converged World https://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/files/Content-Regulation-in-a-Converged-World-2-pager.PDF
ENDS