Senator Conroy made the announcement during a radio interview with Robyn Gaile, Executive Officer of Blind Citizens Australia, on the New Horizons program, which is broadcast on Radio for the Print Handicapped and community radio stations across Australia.
This comes after AMC Theatres’ formal announcement reported by Media Access Australia in January to commit to closed captioning across its complexes across the USA. The first state, California, will commence installation in mid-2012. Although not included in the announcement, audio description will also be installed nationally.
The settlement brings a more prescribed implementation program to Illinois, and includes the following clauses:
Ofcom’s report gives figures for the 67 channels required to provide access services. 57 of these exceeded their quotas, some by significant amounts. Six BBC channels missed their 100% captioning quota by less the 0.2% due to technical problems, while three subscription channels which missed their quotas have agreed to make up the shortfall in 2012.
The FAQs released this week confirm that the trial, which will consist of 14 hours of prime time programs being audio described for thirteen weeks, will commence in August. The intention is for the trial to be made available nationally, and the ABC is expected to report on it by late 2012.
