The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has undertaken a review of the captioning obligations in Part 9D of the Broadcasting Services Act (1992) as prescribed in the legislation. ACCAN participated in the consultation in a written submission. Our response to the review reiterates ACCAN’s long-held view that accurate and comprehensible captions on broadcast television are essential for full and equitable access to our foremost medium for news, information and entertainment for all those Australians who rely on captions when viewing television.

In our response we recommend that all free-to-air channels provide captions over the entire broadcast day. ACCAN also calls for all emergency warning broadcasts to be captioned and whenever an emergency warning media event includes an Auslan interpreter any television broadcast of that event must include the Auslan interpreter.

Download: ACMA BSA Captioning Statutory Review 2016805.25 KB

Download: ACMA BSA Captioning Statutory Review 2016400.59 KB