Ofcom conducted a periodic review of access services and generally opted for the status quo in how captioning (called subtitling in the UK), AD and sign language should be treated. There was no overall change to the general approach to how the need for access services is determined, including the regime of allowing smaller channels to opt out of providing sign language on programs in return for helping fund sign language programming on community TV.
With the audio description quotas, three options were looked at:
1. Keeping it at maximum 10%.
2. Increasing it to maximum 20%.
3. Increasing public broadcasters only to 20%.
There were a number of discussions around the different options, with the third being well supported. However, in the end Ofcom decided to not make any recommendation. The Secretary of State has the power to change the quotas. Ofcom did recommend that more promotion of the AD service was needed and agreed to consult with broadcasters about how to best achieve that.
For more information, see the Ofcom website.
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