ASTRA has been asked to:
· Provide details of ASTRA members’ profit, and the amount spent on captioning, for the year 2009-2010, to support its contention that ‘an obligation to caption all programming on all channels would be financially prohibitive’.
· Comment on the proposal in several submissions that the ASTRA members spend 1% of annual turnover on captioning.
· Provide information about how the percentages of captioning proposed for each channel under an exemption agreement were determined.
· Comment on the claim that, under the proposed new agreement, levels of captioning on some channels could fall, and undertake this would not happen.
· Provide reasons why 26 channels should be exempt from the obligation to provide captions, as ASTRA has requested.
· Outline any plans to provide captions on FOXTEL’s download service.
· Comment on the proposal made in several submissions that an independent entity monitor compliance with the exemption on a quarterly basis.
· Comment on the proposal that any new channel launched during the exemption should have to make a separate application for exemption.
· Comment on the proposal that the exemption be granted for less than five years.
The Commission has requested that ASTRA make its response by 30 June 2010.
The full letter can be read on the Human Rights Commission website.
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