Developments in audio description on Australian TV

Transcript

30 December 2012

Roberta: With us today is Chris Mikul, Project Manager at Media Access Australia. Chris is going to tell us about the latest development in the wake of the audio description trial on ABC TV, and what we might expect next year. Welcome, Chris.

Chris: Hello Roberta.

Roberta: Now, what’s been happening since the trial ended in November?

Chris: Okay, well, I think when I was with you last time I mentioned that there’s a report that the ABC has been preparing on the trial, which is due to go to the government by the end of this year. That’s mainly reporting on the technical aspects of the trial, which are – mostly the trial went very, very well, but just a few things came up which will need to be sorted out before a full service goes ahead. So that is all happening now.

In the meantime, Media Access Australia, Vision Australia, Blind Citizens Australia and ACCAN have all got together and produced a report of their own, which is more about the giving the consumer response to the trial. So we think that’s a very important aspect of it as well.

Roberta: So Chris, what sort of things are in the report?

Chris: Well, for me, by far the most important thing is, is just the testimonies from a lot of people, a lot of blind and vision impaired people who were able to access the audio description during the trial. And you know, it’s just so clear, the incredible difference that it made to those people, just having that service over the 13 weeks. They for the first time, sometimes for years, they were able to fully enjoy television. Which is such a basic thing for most people. And enjoy it and not have to rely on their friends or their family to tell them what’s actually happening on the screen. So I think it’s very important that their experiences are heard.

Now also there are things like discussion of what programs were described during the trial. Because some programs lend themselves to audio description more than others. You need to have a little bit of a space in the audio to actually fit the description in, and so on. So these are the sort of things that the trial was aimed at sort of evaluating.

Also, commenting on the style of the audio description. Because there’s a few different schools of thought about how it should be – what should be done, how the speaker should sound, should they sound sort of cold and unemotional, or should they be a little bit more interpretive. So things like that.

And then also some, sort of, practical stuff about looking at other levels of audio description in other countries. In a lot of cases, that basically puts Australia to shame. Because if you are in the UK now, pretty well 10% of programs are audio-described on most channels. So we’re way behind here, unfortunately.

Roberta: But we’re still going forward, aren’t we?

Chris: We’re still going forward. Look, I suppose it’s a big thing to introduce something that’s completely new into the broadcasting system here. There’s a lot of technical stuff to work out, there’s a lot of just practical stuff. But I think it’s all gone pretty well, fingers crossed.

Roberta: [Laughter] So, Chris, what do you think will happen next year?

Chris: Well, what we’ve asked to happen is, once the government has been given time to absorb our report and absorb the ABC report, what we’d like to happen is just a sort of round‑table discussion with all the various stakeholders with the blind groups and with ABC and with the Department of Communications, and everyone’s involved, and see what the next steps are, what the problems are which need to be ironed out.

Now I suppose the big picture here is that the ABC’s tri-annual or three-year funding is up for negotiation next year. So their budget for three years from next June is being decided. So basically it’s the government deciding how much money to give the ABC. And of course audio description, it costs money, so that’s the bottom line there. So we’re hoping that the money will be provided for the ABC to deliver the service.

Roberta: Are you still optimistic that we’ll get a regular AD service on TV here?

Chris: I am. I don’t know whether it’s because it’s the season to be jolly and “good will to all men”, and all of that, but I think there is the good will here to do this. And I mean, if you read the report that we’ve compiled you can see what a fantastic service this is for people and how incredibly overdue it is here.

Roberta: Well, listeners, if you want to know more about audio description, Media Access Australia has a website. And you can also contact them via email or phone them on (02) 9212 6242. Thanks for all of that today, Chris.

Chris: Thanks, Roberta.

Roberta: And I wish you a very happy New Year.

Chris: You too.

Roberta: I’ve been speaking with Chris Mikul, Project Manager of Media Access Australia, and Media Access Australia are supporters of this program.

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