Closed captioning issues paper: Part 2
Constraints on captioning
Discussion of how to satisfy the obligations provided by the DDA necessarily includes reference to the limitations on those obligations that are provided by the DDA.
Some disability community submissions appear to argue that cost considerations should not be relevant in this area.
However, the DDA clearly requries issues of cost to be considered in making decisions on whether providing access to a service would involve unjustifiable hardship or would be reasonable. This is not to say that cost issues will necessarily be decisive against captioning of particular programs. This decision would also require consideration of
- financial resources of providers
- whether the costs concerned are unavoidable or are able to be reduced by technical and organisational innovation
- benefits to be balanced against costs.
The Australian Captioning Centre states:
The cost of captioning a program varies considerably depending on the nature of the program. Programs which have been captioned overseas are the least expensive, as caption files may be purchased from overseas suppliers for a few hundred dollars and converted for use on the Australian television system. For offline captioning, the Australian Caption Centre's ratebook charge is $1,560 per hour of program. Major clients such as television networks, however, have negotiated discount rates on the basis of a continuing commitment of work. As more captioning work is done, the rates decrease considerably. It is estimated that to comply with the Television Broadcasting Services (Digital Conversion) Act requirement that all prime time (6:00 pm to 10:30 pm) and all news and current affairs be captioned, a major network would pay from $2 million to $3 million per year, depending on the mix of programming shown.
ABC TV's submission
- notes that the ABC receives separate funding for captioning the 7 pm news and the adult education material shown from 3am to 7am on weekdays, and 60% separate funding for the late edition news
- notes that the ABC's own funding allocations for captioning have been held constant in the last two financial years against reductions in all other budget areas
- indicates additional costs in the order of $3 million annually to comply with the maximum level of obligation provided for under the digital conversion legislation, that is, captioning of all news and current affairs and all prime time programming
- argues that reductions would need to be made in program production and purchasing to meet such costs if additional funding is not provided.
FACTS submission states:
In considering the practicality of captioning it needs to be remembered that stations are currently having to absorb huge costs in the transition to digital television which is due to commence on 1 January 2001. In addition, take-up levels of both analogue and digital receivers capable of receiving captioned information need to be considered. In the early years of digital, for example, there are likely to be limited numbers of households with digital receivers. In imposing captioning requirements, we submit that requirements should not be so onerous that stations will be forced to make programming cuts, affecting all viewers.
The Parents of Hearing Impaired Children National Network submission supports the figure of 2% of a station's revenues which has been applied to captioning costs in the United States. The National Working Party on Captioning also refers to this figure. It should be noted that this is a ceiling on required captioning rather than a compulsory minimum expenditure.
FACTS' submission notes that in the United States
Programmers with annual gross revenues under $3 million are exempt and there are percentage revenue limits on captioning spending.
This submission does not make completely clear whether these revenue limits are at a level and of a kind which would be viewed as appropriate for Australian circumstances.
Issues for discussion:
- What level of cost should be regarded as involving unjustifiable hardship in the various circumstances of television service providers?
- Would it be appropriate for the Commission to adopt a percentage level of revenues as indicating or determining unjustifiable hardship and reasonableness issues?
- How far does a fixed budget for captioning necessitate a more or less fixed level of captioning?
- How far are major efficiencies possible in this area in Australian circumstances as found by overseas regulatory authorities?
6.2 Constraints regarding particular classes of material
The Australian Caption Centre's submission indicates that captioning of news and current affairs programming often presents more technical and organisational difficulty, as well as expense, than other classes of programming.
News programs which include a significant amount of truly live material, or where captioners are precluded from accessing material as the bulletin is being produced, will require realtime text generation by a stenocaptioner. Current affairs programs often require the fast text entry method of stenography, even if they do not contain an abundance of live material. This is because the duration of an individual story in a current affairs program is relatively longer than an individual news story.
... There are many steno writers employed by courts, parliaments and private companies in Australia, but currently only few are capable of delivering accurate transcriptions in real time. ...The Australian Caption Centre is working with Computer Reporters in Sydney and Transcripts Australia in Melbourne to increase the number of realtime writers capable of engaging in stenocaptioning, and will commence in-house training of experienced steno writers to bring them up to the skills level required for stenocaptioning. TVW 7 in Perth also runs an in-house live captioning facility, and they are engaging in training work in both Perth and Brisbane. Both organisations' strategies are to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of trained stenocaptioners to deal with captioning all news and current affairs within two years.
FACTS emphasises costs difficulties if stations are required to caption all news and current affairs, as contemplated by the objectives set for regulations under the digital conversion legislation (although this objective is subject to the qualification "as far as practicable").
To take for example a typical day of relevant programming on the Nine Network:
Morning
News 6.00 - 7.00am
Today 7.00 - 9.00am including 4 or 5 news bulletins
News 10.30 - 11.00am
News 6.00 - 6.30pm x 5 (for each State Nine Network bulletin)
A Current Affair 6.30 - 7.00pm
Nightline 10.30 - 11.00pm
Newsbreaks 12 segments x 30 seconds x 5 (for each State).
That comprises over seven and a half hours of news and current affairs programming, spread over 17 hours. When it is considered that the ABC has been given $1.75 million per annum just to caption its half hour early evening news, the potential cost implications for commercial networks to caption all news and current affairs in all markets are very serious.
FACTS concludes, by reference to the objectives set out in the digital conversion legislation, that
- it is not practicable to require commercial television to caption news and current affairs outside of prime time;
- for metropolitan stations, requirements to caption news and current affairs in prime time must be phased in;
- for regional stations, it is not practicable to caption news and current affairs in or out of prime time.
As noted above, FACTS has proposed a scheme that would phase in positive captioning obligations by reference to availability and cost of captioning.
Issues for discussion:
- Is further information available regarding appropriate timetables and targets in a scheme for phased implementation of captioning? Will further information become available through DOCA's review under the digital conversion legislation?
- How should such a scheme be recognised for DDA purposes?
6.2.1.1 Alternative approaches to news captioning
Cost estimates for captioning in submissions to the Commission appear to be based on the quality of captioning provided by the Australian Caption Centre or in-house captioning of equivalent standard.
Consideration of similar issues in the United States suggests that in relation to news and some other live or near live programming it may be appropriate to consider approaches which may not guarantee the same quality results but which may permit a higher level of hours captioned and greater range of programs captioned sooner than would otherwise be the case.
The US Federal Communications Commission and submissions to its inquiry in this area gave considerable attention to the Electronic News Room approach in particular. As noted by FACTS' submission:
In news captioning the FCC allows electronic newsroom (ENR) captioning which means that the station can show the prewritten scripts rather than captioning actual words spoken.
The FCC's 1997 Report and Order states:
74. In the Notice, we tentatively concluded that it would not be appropriate or necessary to restrict captioning methodologies. We were concerned that any restrictions on the method of captioning would prevent certain types of programming from being captioned. For example, we noted that the ENR method does not provide complete captioning when not all aural portions of a program are scripted, yet it has the advantage over other methods in that once an initial investment is made in equipment and software, it is relatively cost free.
Comments on this issue focus on whether the ENR method of captioning should be acceptable for compliance with our rules. Parties supporting our proposal not to restrict the use of this method generally state that its use will permit the captioning of certain types of programming, especially local news and other live programs, that otherwise would not be captioned in the short term. RTNDA claims that the ENR method of captioning can yield highly reliable captions for the majority of live, local news content at modest cost. In this regard, Pulitzer asserts that the content of the limited amount of non-scripted material is often communicated in other ways (e.g., weather reports that contain graphical and visual elements). WGBH states that, if carefully and intelligently prepared, ENR captioning can provide access to large portions of news programs. In this regard, WGBH states that we should indicate that users of the ENR method need to enter additional script transcriptions into their systems. It suggests that we require that a percentage of a program (e.g., 50% or 75%) be accessible through captions if ENR is used. Similarly, MCS states that a program should not count towards compliance if more than 20% is not captioned.
75. Several commenters are concerned about the cost of real-time captioning should it be mandated for their live programming. For example, RTNDA claims that a requirement for real-time captioning could add at least $100,000 to a station's annual budget. Time Warner estimates that the cost of stenocaptioning its 24-hour local news service would be $500,000 a year. Allnewsco indicates that its ENR system cost $100,000 and that a requirement to use real-time captioning would double the per hour cost of its programming. These commenters assert that the costs of mandated real-time captioning would likely result in the reduction or elimination of the local news services they offer. In addition, commenters indicate that, if ENR is declared inadequate, it is not certain that all programs currently captioned would remain captioned, and a loss of accessibility might result.
76. Alternatively, NAD, Captivision, and Cassidy maintain that the use of the ENR method is not sufficient to satisfy the intent of Section 713 to make video programming "fully accessible." They contend that ENR does not satisfy full accessibility since it does not provide captions for many elements of a news program and, therefore, is not the functional equivalent of the audio portion of the program. NAD rejects any proposals to find the use of ENR acceptable, including those proposals to permit the use of ENR if a specified percentage of the programming is captioned using this method. While noting our concern about the availability of a sufficient number of stenocaptioners, NAD argues that, as captioning becomes required, the number of captioners will increase to fill the need. On this basis, NAD and a few other commenters state that any rule which permits ENR captioning should be limited to one or two years at most.
The FCC concluded:
We will not adopt any limits on the methodology that can be used to create closed captioning and will permit the use of ENR. We may alter this policy in the future, but, at this time, it appears reasonable to permit its use. We are concerned that certain portions of live newscasts often remain uncaptioned even with the use of ENR because they are not scripted, and as commenters representing persons with hearing disabilities point out this method is not the functional equivalent of the audio portion of the programming. However, the record before us provides conflicting evidence regarding the number of real-time captioners for programming, primarily live newscasts, for which ENR is an alternative method. For example, MATP reports that there are 542 court reporters certified as real-time stenocaptioners and hundreds more registered with real-time captioning skills, yet VITAC, one of the larger captioning agencies, states that there is a shortage of qualified stenocaptioners for real-time captioning. However, we recognize that an enormous amount of programming that has not been captioned up until this time will soon have to be captioned. We believe that the interests of persons with hearing disabilities and the video industry are served by permitting the use of ENR at this time. We conclude that ENR will permit such programming to be made accessible under the transition schedule we adopt at a reasonable cost. Accordingly, consistent with Section 713, our decision to permit ENR will promote accessibility without imposing a captioning requirement that is an economic or undue burden. We also hope that once an entity invests in the software needed to convert a teleprompter script into captions, it will have an incentive to use this equipment for all or a significant portion of its live programming (e.g., all its newscasts), and not just the amount of programming needed to satisfy the transition benchmarks. Thus, additional programming may be made accessible at a faster rate. We expect to revisit this issue in the future to evaluate whether ENR provides sufficient captioning of news programming that is of such importance to persons with hearing disabilities. In the meantime, we urge video programming providers to script additional portions of their programming, especially weather and sports reports. We also believe that, if ENR is used, an introduction to or short description of the non-captioned segment (e.g., live remote) should be provided to allow persons with hearing disabilities to be aware of the topic of the story. We believe that it may be appropriate to reconsider the use of ENR as a means of captioning once the cost of real-time captioning declines, the availability of captioners increases, and the technology to provide live captioning from remote locations becomes more readily available.
It should also be noted however that on 17 September 1998 the FCC adopted variations to its closed captioning rules, including in relation to ENR captioning.
For a certain class of providers, the establishment of a cut-off date for the use of electronic newsroom ("ENR") technology as part of compliance with closed captioning requirements. ENR is commonly used for live programming, especially newscasts, and creates captions from a news script computer or teleprompter. Only material that is scripted can be captioned using this technique and, thus, within a program, live field reports, breaking news, sports and weather may remain uncaptioned. On reconsideration, the Commission finds the limitations of ENR to be a concern. Accordingly, beginning January 1, 2000, the class of video providers prohibited from using ENR for compliance with the rules will include the four major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC), broadcast stations affiliated with these networks in the top 25 television markets as defined by Nielsen's Designated Market Areas, and nonbroadcast networks serving 50% or more of the total of multichannel video programming distributor households.
The FCC approach thus involves giving equivalent recognition to ENR and more comprehensive captioning methods but on a temporary basis subject to review. An alternative approach might be to take the limitations of the ENR method into account more directly by crediting ENR captioning at a reduced rate toward a percentage quota of material captioned.
The Canadian Radio and Television Commission commented in its 1995 decisions that:
Having discussed with broadcasters, captioning providers, and interest groups the various costs of captioning technology, the Commission notes that real-time captioning of live programming, which is considered by deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers to be far preferable to live display captioning, is no longer cost-prohibitive and will continue to decrease in cost over the next few years. Further, new technologies that will facilitate the captioning of live programming, such as voice recognition, are now being developed and will be available in the near future. Therefore, the Commission considers that large broadcasters should be required to caption the live segments of all news programming early in the next licence term.
This was not a finding that captioning of all live segments of news was possible and should be required in the 1995-2002 licence period but a view that it would be possible and should be required early in the 2002-2009 period.
By contrast, the U.S. FCC noted in its 1997 Report and Order:
With respect to future technological advances and their effects on closed captioning, commenters are not optimistic about the future of technologies that create captions directly from speech (i.e., voice recognition technology). WGBH states that there is no real possibility in the near or long-term future that will allow automatic captioning through voice recognition. VITAC observes that no adequate voice recognition system exists or is likely to exist in the near future, and "certainly not in a size and at a price to be built into television receivers."
It appears however that at least some of these comments were discussing and dismissing the foreseeable prospects for voice recognition as a fully automatic and fully comparable substitute for comprehensive high quality captioning, rather than as a partial but still effective measure for increasing access, or as a means of facilitating more comprehensive captioning through low cost provision of text for editing and addition of captions on non-spoken material.
It might also be noted that these comments are from organisations highly experienced in developing and using existing captioning methods, and in the case of VITAC, an organisation commercially in the business of promoting these methods. It is not clear on the materials available to the Commission whether these organisations are equally engaged and expert in speech recognition technology.
The comment by VITAC (a division of American Data Captioning Inc.) in the FCC's inquiry states that
the very definition of "captioning" eliminates an automated speech-recognition system from consideration. For captioning to do its job of providing "a visual depiction of information simultaneously being presented in the aural channel" (Notice at *7), the captions must "also identify speakers, sound effects, music and laughter" (Notice at *1). No speech-recognition system is capable of providing such critical additional information, and, therefore, no speech-recognition system will be capable of generating "captions" as we think of them today. Any redefinition of what constitutes captioning is beyond the scope of this rulemaking.
This comment also states:
Pre-transmission insertion of captioning describes the world we have today. Post-transmission generation can only be accomplished in one way -- through realtime speech-recognition software. There are two problems with post-transmission generation. First, no adequate system -- capable of realtime translation and display, high accuracy, with speaker independence -- exists today or is likely to exist in the next 20 years, certainly not in a size and at a price to be built into television receivers.
It is not the Commission's understanding that the only potential application of speech recognition is post-transmission, as this comment appears to presuppose, and thus that speech recognition would be required in the viewer's television receiver rather than in a television station's production facilities.
The reference in this comment to "speaker independence" identifies a limitation of current speech recognition technology in that available systems can only recognise one voice or at best a small number of voices which the system is "trained" to recognise. This might prevent available voice recognition systems being used for some news and current affairs purposes (such as interviews). It is not clear that it presents a barrier to use of such systems in live or near-live programming where there are only one or two speakers (perhaps including sports commentary).
The Commission would welcome further information in this area.
Issues for discussion
- Does the "Electronic News Room" method for captioning offer a viable and acceptable means of achieving captioning of news programming, whether generally or as a short or medium term solution or a solution for some types of programming or some types of provider?
- Should ENR captioning be recognised as satisfying captioning requirements under the digital conversion legislation? If so, should this be complete but temporary recognition subject to review and revision to more demanding standards as with the FCC rules, or partial recognition, as counting at a reduced rate towards a required level of overall captioning?
- Are there any other low cost captioning methods available which avoid some of the identified limitations of the ENR method?
- What possibilities are there for using computer voice recognition, as contemplated by the Canadian Radio and Television Commission in its 1995 decisions?
6.2.2 Regional news programming
The Cairns Community Legal Centre submission states:
In North Queensland, no commercial news programs are captioned. ABC and SBS do caption their news broadcasts but these programs are national and international news only. The result is that the deaf community is unable to access any local news on television. We understand that in New South Wales and Victoria local news broadcasts are captioned. This is a gross inequality in the rights of deaf people in rural and regional Australia.
NBN Television's submission comments:
Due to the unique nature of regional television markets in Australia, covering a huge geographical area and servicing diverse rural, coastal and city populations, the methods of production of local programs in particular local news programs, are vastly different from metropolitan television stations in Australia and world wide.
On each and every night, NBN Television effectively broadcasts five (5) separate News bulletins throughout Northern NSW from the Newcastle studios.
These multiple services are achieved by pre-recording local stories from each market, such that four (4) areas receive a one hour bulletin that is part live and part recorded and one area receives a fully live bulletin.
The split-second timing of this process and the enormous time required to successfully operate this "windowed" production format makes it virtually physically impossible to provide captioning for our multiple services.
Even if a technical method could be found to provide for all services, the practicality and cost of finding five separate stenographers to provide the captioning would be restrictive.
FACTS' submission states:
The impracticalities are particularly acute in regional aggregated markets in which a single licensee can broadcast up to seven individual news bulletins. A legislative requirement for all these bulletins to be captioned would be untenable and would result in a reduction in news services in regional areas.
The difficulties of news captioning are compounded dramatically in regional areas. This is due to local news. In regional areas, each weekday, commercial stations put to air well over 50 individual half hour news bulletins.
... These bulletins have modest audiences but they serve local communities well. They operate on tight budgets and marginal returns. Already costs pressures have resulted in reduced local programming including local news. Any significant increase in news costs will result in a decline in the number of news services provided for "sub-markets", in favour of composite bulletins, as well as a possible decline in the number of composite bulletins, in favour of no local news at all.
In addition, there are very few or no people with necessary specialised live captioning skills in many regional areas.
... In addition, regional stations will be facing huge additional capital and operational expenditure requirements at the time of the legislative requirements, arising from the introduction of digital television.
Captioning of news in regional areas (as with metropolitan news outside prime time) would only be possible with the provision of direct financial assistance.
Issue for discussion
- Do alternative methods of captioning such as ENR offer any solutions to difficulties of captioning regional and local news?
ABC TV notes:
Live sport broadcasts present particular challenges for captioners, as it is difficult to provide a captioned description of play which is simultaneous with the action.
FACTS submission states:
Significant amounts of sport are broadcast during prime time, particularly at weekends. There is a considerable labour cost and difficulty in captioning sport because of the unusual hours, the multiplicity of some events (e.g. the different AFL matches broadcast in each market on weekends) the length of some events (e.g. cricket matches and tennis and golf tournaments), location, and improvised and sporadic commentary. Given the visual nature of sport and the high level of 'on screen' statistics and other information, the need for captioning is not as pronounced as in other areas of programming.
Significant sporting events and fixtures have been captioned, for example in 1997 the Seven Network captioned the AFL grand final. This will continue and increase. A blanket requirement for all sport in prime time to be captioned is not realistic.
There has been significant interest in relation to the captioning of the Olympics. The Seven Network is well aware of the hearing impaired community's desire for captioning of the Sydney 2000 Olympic games and the Network is exploring ways of captioning at least the most popular events. The cost of captioning all of a 16 day live event is extraordinarily high and the Seven Network does not want this one event to subsume in two weeks the Network's total captioning budget for the entire year.
Issues for discussion:
- Is further information available on overseas experience in captioning of sports programs?
- Should the Commission accept that captioning for Olympic events must draw on an existing captioning budget for the network concerned? What account should be taken of sponsorship and other funding sources for these events?
- What implications do overseas captioning requirements have for captioning of television coverage of major international sporting events produced in part for international markets such as the US, UK and Canada, in particular, Olympic events and international cricket?
FACTS comments:
There exist enormous difficulties in the captioning of live, fast moving variety style programming such as the Footy Show and Hey Hey Its Saturday. In this type of programming the rapid interplay of conversation, graphic visuals and music on an impromptu basis, makes captioning a difficult process, and an extremely expensive one.
Issue
for discussion:
- To what extent do the difficulties and expense of captioning live material constitute unjustifiable hardship for DDA purposes?
6.2.5 Non-English language programming
SBS Television's submission notes the open captioning, or subtitling, of its non-English language programming and states:
SBS hopes that, in terms of making programs accessible to people with hearing impairments, the inquiry will treat SBS subtitles as achieving a similar outcome to specifically designed closed captions. It is worth noting here that to provide closed captions on top of subtitled programs would make the television screen extremely cluttered for those people choosing to access closed captions.
SBS also notes that
The 6,112 hours SBS was on air in 1997-98, however, incorporated 1,954 hours of WorldWatch, SBS's daily, morning package of overseas news bulletins. Some 1,474 of WorldWatch hours were in languages other than English. Most of these news bulletins are picked up by SBS by satellite and re-broadcast, unaltered, within hours of their broadcast in their country of origin. Captioning of these programs would be extremely difficult, and prohibitively expensive, either in their language of origin or translated to English.
The US FCC's closed captioning Report and Order states:
We also will permit video programmers to count towards compliance with our rules any program that is open, rather than closed captioned. Open captioning provides the same information as closed captions but includes this information as part of the primary video signal instead of carrying the captions on line 21 of the VBI [vertical blanking interval]. Thus, the information is available to all viewers without decoding. Because this technique ensures the same accessibility as closed captioning, we will permit video programming providers and distributors to use open captioning. Similarly, we permit subtitles that are available to all viewers to count towards compliance if they are in the language of the target audience.
Issues for discussion:
- Is closed captioning of subtitled material necessary?
- In what circumstances would it involve unjustifiable hardship to require captioning of retransmitted overseas news bulletins such as those presented by SBS WorldWatch where this material is not captioned in its country of origin?
The Cairns Community Legal Centre submission indicates that
Many children's shows are captioned but Playschool (ABC) is not.
ABC TV's submission observes that
there is clearly no need to caption programs for pre-school children, as they are not able to read the words.
A similar (though less definitive) view appears to have been taken by the Canadian Radio and Television Commission which in 1995 stated "captioning may not be appropriate for some types of programming such as pre-school programming" as one of its reasons for requiring 90% rather than 100% captioning of all programs by 2002. (Canadian and other overseas requirements are discussed further below.)
On this issue, the Cairns Community Legal Centre states that
In addition to the right of a deaf child to watch television, it is very important for deaf parents to know the content of a show their hearing child is watching.
Issues for discussion:
- Are programs such as Playschool exclusively aimed at and used by pre-reading children?
- Is captioning possible and worthwhile for pre-school programming?
- What weight should be given to desire or need of deaf or hearing impaired parents to understand children's TV material?
In its 1995 licensing decisions, referred to below, the Canadian Radio and Television Commission decided that a specialist music video station should be exempted from the general requirement to achieve 90% captioning by the year 2002 due to a scarcity of captioned music video.
The US FCC rules referred to below, by contrast, exempt only non-vocal music programming.
It has been suggested (J.Clark, "Follow the Bouncing Ball 90s style" Emigre 33 (Winter 1995) that music video captioning is almost universal in the United States and that the scarcity of captioned music video in Canada relates to organisational failure by Canadian branches of United States record labels in ensuring that captioned versions of United States (captioned) videos get into Canada. This would be an argument against accepting the Canadian Commission's decision as support for limitations on music video captioning based on inherent features of the music video industry or features of this industry in a smaller market such as Canada or Australia.
The Commission would welcome information regarding captioning of music videos in Australian circumstances, including information and views on any differences in capacity to meet captioning requirements as between
- Australian and overseas produced videos or
- independent and major producers
and how these should be dealt with so as to achieve the objects of the DDA without undesirable anti-competitive effects on independent and Australian production.
The U.S. FCC makes the following comments in this area:
124. A number of commenters seek a general exemption for music videos. These commenters maintain that music lyrics are often subordinate to the actual music and can be unintelligible, making captioning unnecessary or impossible in some situations. RIAA admits that an economic burden exemption for music videos produced by the vast majority of its member companies is unnecessary, but that it might be appropriate for music videos produced by independent record labels. RIAA argues that since an assessment of whether economic burden should apply in individual situations could be difficult and time consuming, it would be more practical to accommodate independent labels and simultaneously recognize the vast number of videos already being captioned by exempting music videos under the general exemption. BET contends that our assumptions regarding the extent of current captioning, shelf-life, and production budgets of music videos are overly generalized and inaccurate for many of these programs, and that a captioning requirement for such programming will result in a reduction of the diversity of such programming available to all viewers.
Issue for discussion:
- Does the finding of the Canadian Commission regarding scarcity of captioned music video remain current? Is it applicable in Australian circumstances?
- Is more information available on captioning of music videos in Australian circumstances?
7. Relevance of developments in digital technology
Submissions, in particular from ABC TV, FACTS and the Australian Caption Centre, note a number of technical and financial issues regarding conversion to digital television transmission and captioning within digital transmission formats, including
- costs to be incurred by stations in the digital conversion process
- need for Presentation Time Stamping to be included in captions prepared in analogue format for conversion to digital during the simulcast period
- need to ensure availability of "true subtitles", rather than teletext only, so as to ensure that viewers using new digital TVs can receive captions.
In addition to these issues regarding digital transmission, the Commission is interested in receiving information on developments in digital production technology including speech recognition and Electronic NewsRoom technology. These issues are noted elsewhere in this paper regarding news programming. The Commission is interested in receiving information on how these developments may affect programming in other areas.
8. Standards for quality of captioning and "pass through" of pre-existing captions
The Australian Caption Centre identifies a number of issues regarding quality of captioning and presents an overview of requirements for high quality captioning.
Captioning television programs is a specialised task. It is more than simply transcribing the dialogue of a program. The purpose of captions is to convey information inherent to the soundtrack so that people with a hearing disability can have access to the television program. Consequently, captions must be cued on and off synchronously to the program they are depicting, captions must be coloured and positioned to provide information as to who is speaking, relevant sound effects must be captioned, such as an off screen gunshot (otherwise, why did the character fall?), and text needs to be delivered at a reading rate which is comprehensible while also looking at picture information, while still maintaining the original character of the speech.
The Parents of Hearing Impaired Children National Network comments:
There must be some mechanism to see that the standards of presentation of quality captioning we now enjoy is maintained.
The Victorian Council of the Deaf submission states that
[the] quality of captioning whilst improving still needs more consistency in performance.
It raises a number of concerns:
too many errors [in live captioning], drop out, too quick time frame to read all the words, disparity between Australian made and overseas made captioning shows difference in standards; use of overseas captioning on US shows for Australian television audiences, whilst in our view a good short term solution because of cost savings, in the long term raises question of standards (as mentioned in previous point); inability of deaf TV viewers to contact TV station immediately to inform them of captioning problem in order to get a quick solution - no TTY phone access to control room (usually only TTY answering machine in front office).
In the context of urging the extension of captioning requirements for video and pay TV, the National Working Party on Captioning appears to give a degree of endorsement to use of overseas captioning.
Many of the re-broadcast American programs have existing caption files available, thus significantly reducing the cost of providing a full captioning service to subscribers.
As noted elsewhere in this paper, the Australian Captioning Centre submission states:
Most programming contained on FOXTEL and OPTUS originates from the United States or the United Kingdom. Both of these countries have legislation requiring provision of captioning. Equipment for transmission of captions also is purchased from these countries. It is therefore reasonable to assume that subscription services in Australia can provide similar levels of access to cable television that Americans and the English enjoy, given that existing caption files could be purchased and converted cost-effectively.
The United States FCC's 1997 Report and Order includes the following material on "pass through" of existing captioning:
85. In addition, we will require distributors to pass through existing captions where the programming they distribute is received with captions, regardless of whether the distributor has already met the relevant captioning benchmark. This requirement will apply to both new and pre-rule programming when distributors deliver programming to consumers without editing. This requirement will not impose a burden on distributors, as all distributors have the technical ability to pass through captioning and it simply requires them to ensure that their technical facilities are in proper working order to pass through the captioning data. Thus, all video programming distributors will be required to deliver all programming they receive that contains closed captioning, regardless of the programming source, to consumers with the captions intact.
86. We recognize that persons with hearing disabilities find it frustrating when a program previously viewed with captions is shown at another time without captions. In some instances, the reason for this is that the program has been edited, which may require that the captions be reformatted. We recognize that reformatting involves some expense and effort in order to ensure that the captions correspond to the edited program. We believe that the reformatting of captions when programming is edited is an important part of providing access to video programming consistent with the intent of Section 713. Thus, we expect that video programming providers will make the reformatting of captions a common practice when programs are edited. However, we are aware that a requirement, in addition to the other requirements of our rules, that every program that has previously been captioned have its captions reformatted before it is redistributed to consumers could be economically burdensome in some cases because of the type or amount of editing that is done. Accordingly, we will not at this time adopt a requirement for reformatting, although we strongly encourage video programming providers to reformat captions as part of the editing process. We also anticipate that more reformatting of captions will be done as the marketplace evolves, video programming providers become more accustomed to captioning their programming and technological changes make reformatting easier, less expensive and less onerous. We intend to review this decision as our closed captioning rules are implemented to determine whether our expectation that reformatting will become an industry practice is fulfilled. At that time, we will consider whether a reformatting requirement is necessary.
The Commission would welcome more information on the extent of reformatting required for overseas captions to be effectively accessible with Australian transmission and whether this imposes significant technical or financial barriers such that effective pass through of pre-existing captions should not be regarded as required.
Issues for discussion:
- What if any actions should the Commission take or recommend regarding quality of captioning?
- What if any actions should the Commission take or recommend regarding pass through of existing caption files?
9. Responsibilities of producers of program material
The Parents of Hearing Impaired Children National Network submission calls for producers of video material to be held responsible for ensuring accessibility of all new material by 2006.
ABC TV's submission comments that in the United States
... responsibility for the provision of captioned programs rests with the program provider, and not the broadcaster.
It goes on to state:
The ABC believes consideration should be given to the relative merits of placing the obligation to provide captions with the broadcaster or with the producer. The British and American legislation provide opportunities to compare the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches.
The understanding of the FCC requirements indicated in ABC TV's submission does not appear to the Commission to be accurate. The term "provider" in the United States context does not refer to producers providing programs to broadcasters and other distributors. It refers to broadcasters and other distributors providing programs to the public.
The FCC comments in its Report and Order:
18. ... Because it is efficient and will focus responsibility for rule compliance, we will generally place the responsibility for compliance with our closed captioning rules on video programming distributors, defined as all entities who provide video programming directly to customers' homes, regardless of distribution technology used. ... Although we are placing the ultimate responsibility on program distributors, we expect that distributors will incorporate closed captioning requirements into their contracts with producers and owners, and that parties will negotiate for an efficient allocation of captioning responsibilities.
19. ... we sought comment on whether the use of the term "program providers and owners" in Section 713 may have been intended to provide the Commission with jurisdiction over producers of video programming, given the statement in the legislative history that "[t]he term "provider" contained throughout [this section] refers to the specific television station, cable operator, cable network or other service that provides programming to the public." We solicited comment on the feasibility of having program owners and providers share responsibility for compliance obligations with our closed captioning rules.
20. A variety of commenters, including commenters representing persons with hearing disabilities, support our proposal to place responsibility for compliance on video programming distributors, noting that we have never exercised direct jurisdiction over networks or producers.
199. ...As we have previously noted, closed captioning is most likely to be done at the production stage or prior to distribution where it is most economically and technically efficient. Thus, we expect that most captioning will be done through arrangements between the video programming distributors responsible for compliance and these other entities.
This follows the comment in the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking:
We believe that the programming providers are in the best position to ensure that the programming they distribute is closed captioned because of their role in the purchasing of programming from producers. For example, a provider can refuse to purchase programming that is not closed captioned. We also believe that the direct link between consumers and their video providers is an important consideration for ensuring compliance with our rules.
A number of reasons are apparent for concluding as the US FCC did that it is more efficient (and more effective) to place captioning requirements on television stations and leave them to negotiate with producers and owners of video material to ensure these requirements are met.
- On this model, market forces may operate in support of the objects of the regulatory requirement, since captioning or the lack of it is likely to be reflected in the price stations are prepared to pay for programs.
- It is more likely to be practicable to apply meaningful targets for percentages of material captioned to stations than to producers, particularly in the case of one-off production ventures.
- Transaction costs in stations negotiating with producers and suppliers of video material appear likely to be substantially less than the transaction costs of consumers of television programs seeking to negotiate or litigate with producers and suppliers of video material to ensure compliance.
- Anti-competitive effects appear likely to be less if requirements are applied to stations rather than directly to producers, in terms of impact on smaller producers, apparently greater involvement in production at present of free to air television as against pay television providers, and possible creation of barriers to market entry.
- Broadcast television is already subject to considerable regulation in the public interest for reasons including that broadcast spectrum is a limited public resource.
- While television production in Australia is also a small market, it does not appear subject to the same regulation and the scale of start up costs present for television transmission. In any event the relevant television production industry is not confined to Australia.
- It appears difficult for the DDA or other Australian law to place valid and effective requirements directly on all producers of material which might be shown on Australian television rather than only on Australian sourced material.
- Requirements placed on Australian producers alone could disadvantage production and showing of Australian content.
Allocation of responsibility as between producers of material for television and television stations appears to be similar under the DDA as under the FCC rules. Production of material for direct distribution by sale or rental of videotapes presents distinct issues and is discussed separately in this paper. Production of video material for television does not appear, in itself, to constitute provision of goods or services to the public so as to be the subject of complaint under the DDA. Nor does it appear that there would be any person with a disability who is a "person aggrieved" by a lack of captioning of material for television, until that material is transmitted by a station.
Information or comments on these issues would be welcome.
ABC TV's submission also indicates:
It is the ABC's experience that in an environment where there is no legislative requirement for producers to caption programs, few will do so.
The ABC TV submission indicates that the ABC has encouraged captioning by independent producers and emphasised captioning in guidelines for decisions on program commissioning.
The ABC has sought to encourage independent producers to accept some responsibility for captioning programs commissioned for the ABC, but with limited success. The publication of a Network Television Commissioning Guide in 1997 highlighted the ABC's commitment to the deaf and hearing impaired community, and gave independent producers access to concessional captioning rates for ABC commissions. To date, no independent producer has availed themselves of this arrangement.
The ABC has also incorporated reference to funds for captioning in the television commissioning pro-forma, which contains information considered by Network Television management when programs are commissioned. The inclusion of a section relating to the provision of captioning funds is designed to encourage ABC and independent producers to address this issue on each occasion a program is commissioned.
These policy measures do not appear to constitute any level of requirement for captioning.
Issues for discussion:
- Are specific legislative requirements on producers necessary, or would requirements from stations on what programs they will fund or purchase be equally effective?
- Is the allocation of responsibility in the first instance under the DDA (and the United States FCC rules) to television stations rather than producers the most appropriate, efficient and effective approach?
