NBN said that its operations staff failed to identify that there was a system error in the retransmission of caption feeds from the Nine Network in Sydney. NBN has agreed to implement a visual alarm in the direct eye line of the caption presentation coordinator if a similar occurrence happens in future. This in addition to previously agreed audits and improvement as a result of past captioning breaches by the station.
ACMA, the television industry and consumer representatives are continuing to work on caption quality indicators that are expected to form part of the legislation to properly regulate caption quality. This flows from recommendations from the Media Access Review undertaken by the Federal Government, which are in the process of being implemented.
Media Access Australia CEO Alex Varley said, “It is disappointing that there is yet another breach of captioning requirements from NBN. This is why the captioning rules covering captioning quotas and captioning quality needs to be brought into law. Only then will see a serious approach taken to delivering a proper captioning service.”
On a more positive note, Varley said that “ACMA has sped up its investigation and delivered an outcome in under 6 months. I hope this is also signalling a more vigorous approach by ACMA in dealing with these consumer complaints.”
A media release explaining the ruling can be found on the ACMA website.
Top of page