Under the agreement, which was reached in consultation with Media Access Australia, minimum captioning levels on movie channels will increase from 55% to 75%, on some general entertainment channels from 35% to 55%, and on sports channels from 5% to 15%. Subscription TV providers which adhere to these minimum levels will be exempt from complaints about caption levels under the Disability Discrimination Act until 2015.
“I commend the members of ASTRA for their commitment to continued increases in captioning levels,” said Graeme Innes, the Disability Discrimination Commissioner, in an AHRC media release. “I’m very pleased we were able to reach this agreement.”
This is the latest in a series of agreements on subscription TV captioning levels endorsed by the AHRC. The first of these, in 2004, resulted in an initial 20 channels being enabled for captioning, with caption levels commencing at 5% and rising by 5% each year. Since then, some channels, particularly movie channels, have voluntarily provided significantly more captioning than the minimum levels required.
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