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Networks forget captions, let down hearing-impaired viewers.

Poor or absent captions may not seem like a big deal, except to those who rely on them the most.

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MKR winners Bree May and Jessica Liebich_resize.jpgOverlooking captions for television broadcasts may seem like a light misdemeanour to many, but to those who rely on them, it’s a very serious matter.

Last month media watchdog the Australian Communications and Media Authority found GTV9 Melbourne and Prime’s NEN in northern New South Wales, both guilty of caption-related breaches. NRN in Coff’s Harbour was also in breach in April over a Rugby Union game.

Nine News Melbourne was found to have not supplied captions for a lead news item last September, while NEN left out captions for portions of the My Kitchen Rules grand final.

Under the Broadcast Services Act networks must provide captioning for prime time programs, and news and current affairs programmes outside of primetime.

Brent Phillips Manager of Communication & Community Relations, at Sign Language Communications Victoria told TV Tonight captions were essential for deaf and hearing impaired viewers.

“TV captioning is essential in providing access to information for deaf and hard of hearing viewers. It is not only important for us to view the same TV shows as our peers, including movies, soapies and so forth, but critical in enabling us to be up to date on issues that have an impact on our lives such as news programs, emergency broadcasts,” he said.

But while captions must be provided in primetime, outside of these rules there is still room for improvement, according to Phillips.

“There are legislation and rulings that require TV broadcasters to provide captioning during certain times of the day, however there are still gaps in the provision of captions particularly during daytime, the early hours of the morning and on Pay TV. As such, access to TV shows remains inequitable for deaf and hard of hearing viewers.”

6 Responses

  1. It’s not just the hard of hearing who need captions. In most American shows these days the actors speak so fast (especially in comedies) that you can’t follow what they’re saying, and ditto with quite a lot of British programs, where they’re speaking with strong accents of various kinds. I have very good hearing, but I use the captions quite a lot.

    SBS are the best of the lot.

  2. I just want to add that At the Movies is on Sunday at 5.30pm.

    Also thank you for your answer DeafViewer. So does that mean if you buy the wrong TV it can screw up recording captions? Because if so it’s nuts. But sounds typical of the modern age where people don’t think about the consequences of technology.

  3. Part 2

    D@GP:
    I believe, secondary Stations is currently on the ‘Anti-Discrimination Exemptions’ and thus allows to show programs without captions, and has been since inception. Ten and Nine are the worst offenders, with Ten not showing Supernatural, New Girl, amongst others, later seasons even though they had already shown captions in the first few seasons and/or shows originally on Main channels before moving. More recently, Nine shows Absolutely Fabulous and Ten’s Torchwood, with no captions even though ABC had screened them with captions. Seven at first did not screen Mythbusters and Robin Hood with captions, now they are captioned, causing me to miss Robin Hood first few episodes.

    Ten even promoted the shows with captions when secondary stations commenced showing it has captions. But when those shows started, it did not. (Case in Point: recently Nine’s Britain’s Got Talent…

  4. A

    Yes you can record the captions with a DVR/VHS recorder as long as it has captions. You cannot record it, if the TV has captions though.

  5. First apologies for a long post:

    A long time deaf reader and fan of this site, this is my first post finally prompted by this story and comments.

    Nothing frustrates me more than the lack of respect and disdains the TV stations shows its deaf and hard of hearing viewers. (Not to mention not having more deaf or disabled TV stars but that’s another story)

    I thought I’d explain.

    When the captions first commenced, it was done by a group of people who did such a fantastic job especially the live captioning. Now they are mostly replaced by computer generated captions (CGC). Not sure how much though.

    D@GP:
    I believe, secondary Stations is currently on the ‘Anti-Discrimination Exemptions’ and thus allows to show programs without captions, and has been since inception. Ten and Nine are the worst offenders, with Ten not showing Supernatural, New Girl, amongst others, later…

  6. I’ve noticed some talk shows like Ellen the captions as so out of sync it makes them almost useless, I’m talking delays of about 5 seconds behind what is happening. Why is this so when news and other shows (which are live) tend to have very little delay.

  7. @ D@GP

    What about repeats of At the Movies? Can you record it with captions and watch it? Or maybe watch it. I think there’s one around 2pm Friday on ABC1 and one at 5.30pm on ABC News 24 with no news ticker tape thankfully. Which hopefully prevents there being an issue.

    I sometimes watch the latter because I’m avoiding prime time as much as I can. I don’t always watch it but it is treated alright for this era. I don’t know about the captions however.

    @ Bilko

    That sounds disgusting. Plus pretty ridiculous because most films I know of have subtitles on the DVDs. So why can’t they be used somehow or something similar?

  9. It seems the captions rules doesn’t apply to the networks’ secondary channels.

    I’ve given up trying to follow several programmes without the benefit of captions on the digitals – and in prime time too.

    What’s even more annoying is when the sub-titles are done ‘live’ – as in the case of At The Movies – usually every second week. Even though the show was recorded up to two weeks beforehand.

    Seven’s Sydney News is good, though – pre-prepared captions up on screen in sentences as spoken – even the live crosses to reporters ‘on-the-scene’.

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