Catchup services

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has published preliminary exemption orders for 34 channels provided on Telstra Pay TV for mobile phones. These include both free-to-air channels such as ABC1, and channels available on Foxtel.

UK television network ITV has announced an increase in the amount of programming available with audio description on its ITV Player service for Android.

The trial of audio description on the ABC’s iview service is about to enter its third month, with feedback from viewers on the choice of programs and quality of the description being very positive.

The accessibility of video-on-demand (VOD) services is a hot topic in Australia, the UK and other countries at the moment. There have been calls for legislation to be introduced unless the VOD services make acceptable progress in introducing captions and audio description voluntarily. But what constitutes accessible progress? In the UK, the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), Action on Hearing Loss, and Sense (who represent people who are deafblind or have associated disabilities) have issued a report that attempts to answer that question.