TELEVISION AND VIDEO CAPTIONING - THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE


Dr G Williams			Mr N Tayeh
Paediatrician				3 Slim Place
PO Box 248, Menai NSW 2234	Wentworthville NSW 2145


There are 3.7 million hearing impaired persons in Australia, which is a significant functional impairment. 21% of the population, i.e.1:5, have some degree of hearing loss. This increases to 1:3 over 65 years and 1:2 over 85 years.

Television was introduced to Australia in 1956. At that time no captioning was available. Over the past 25 years captioning has been slowly introduced. In America 95% and in Britain 50% of TV captioning have been achieved. The captioning for Australia was set at 2010 and more recently changed to 2005 by the Australian Captioning Centre. In correspondence with Senator Richard Alston on the 13/1/2000 stated that "a review of the captioning requirements in relation to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 will be considered for a review report to be tabled in both Houses of Parliament". He further stated "digital mode broadcasting will commence in metropolitan areas on the 1/1/2001 and for regional areas from the period of 1/1/2001 to December 2003. The standard will apply to both digital and analog transmissions".

We believe that the lack of significant captioning is a discrimination against the deaf. These persons are not in a position to follow the interactions in television and video programs. They miss out on the language, culture and humour. They cannot watch Talk Shows, and there are many that are popular, because they cannot hear what is being said. 

We have urged the Federal Government to secure captioning because of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 for the deaf community. We have also recommended that captioning coincide with the Sydney Olympics and Para-Olympics as part of our support for the disabled athletes who will be visiting our country. We would like to see captioning reach its target by 1st January 2001 in time for the Australian Federation Centenary. We have written to the television networks to extend captioning to regional centres. You can support the Captioning campaign by signing the petition.