ABC I-View Article - Issues about Audio Description and Captioning
That ABC Iview Screwup Was Hilarious, But It’s Also Part Of A Way More Serious
Problem
by JANE HOWARD 16 FEBRUARY 2017
http://junkee.com/this-hilarious-abc-iview-screwup-is-more-actually-part-of-a-way-bigger-problem/96126
Earlier this week, I tweeted some images of Paul Barry hosting Media Watch
overlaid with the closed captions of Louis Theroux’s Twilight of the Porn
Stars. They were screenshots taken directly from ABC iview after some kind of
unfortunate glitch or error, but the ABC’s first response was to dismiss these
images as “fake”.
Putting aside the facts I am neither funny enough nor adept enough at Photoshop
to have doctored the images, the ABC’s initial response was concerning. The
mix-up — a mismatch of video and captions — is actually one which occurs
regularly on iview for those using the closed captioning services.
It’s typically an easy fix; by refreshing the page once or twice the right file
is pulled up, and there’s no need to file a complaint. But the ABC’s dismissal
implied that no one involved in putting out the initial response was aware of
issues like this being a regular problem.
This time it was funny. The image of award-winning journalist Paul Barry very
seriously talking about having sex on camera is a bit of a joke. But the larger
issue, of accessibility and inclusivity in Australian TV, is actually far more
serious.
The Voices Not Being Heard
For Sia Duff, a photographer from Adelaide who has had a cochlear implant since
1991, unreliable captioning is a regular part of her life.
“Syncing on iview can be so terrible sometimes,” she says. “I’m forever
emailing them about messed up syncs. Even if it’s a second or two off, it’s
still annoying.” While she acknowledges it’s “impressive” how quickly captions
can be added to live television such as news or panel shows, she says these
live captions “are pretty much guaranteed [to be an] unintelligible mess.”
“I don’t bother using captions for the news,” she says.
One of the benefits of a service like iview — designed as a catch-up platform
which hosts shows after their initial broadcast — could be to edit and re-sync
the captions on live shows. But this doesn’t happen, and so mistakes and lags
are carried on through.
Another issue with iview Duff raises is that there is no simple way to make a
complaint about issues with captioning. This has led to her turning towards
commercial services like Netflix.
“Netflix had one episode of Paranoid that was out of sync,” she says, “and
[they] have this awesome menu that lets you alert them immediately as you watch
the show, without tracking down contacts. It’s incredible and everyone should
do it.”
But while closed captioning on iview can be glitchy, the thing the platform
truly fails at in terms of accessibility is providing audio-description for
Australians who are blind and vision-impaired. The ABC trialled
audio-description services — which use a voiceover in-between dialogue to
explain what is visually happening on screen — over 13 weeks on ABC1 in 2012,
and over 15 months on iview until June 2016. Since the end of that trial, no
shows on any ABC platforms have been audio-described.
Emma Bennison, the newly appointed Executive Officer of Blind Citizens
Australia, calls the audio-description situation on iview “just appalling”. To
have the service taken away after the trial, she says, “is almost cruel,
because we now know exactly what we’re missing”.
“I don’t really understand what the impediment is to the ABC continuing with
it,” she says. “I think that they would cite funding as being the issue, but
they claim to be supportive of diverse communities and wanting to build diverse
audiences, so I don’t really see that as being a reasonable explanation.”
Speaking to Junkee, an ABC spokesperson noted “the final report on the
government-funded audio-description iview trial was delivered to the Department
of Communications in late 2016. Its publication is a matter for the Department.
“The ABC has no current plans to introduce audio-description services. Any
questions on the future of AD is a policy issue and should be directed to
government.”
Like Duff, Bennision is choosing to move away from iview and onto commercial
platforms. “I’m watching more and more Netflix content because they do have a
very strong commitment to audio-description,” she says.
“But the challenge, of course, is that I can’t get a lot of Australian
audio-described content. And one of the frustrations that I have — and I know
that many blind and vision impaired people have — is a lot of Australian
content is actually audio-described for the UK market, for example, but we
never see it here. So, that to me is just completely unacceptable.”
Let’s Make The Change!
Providing accessible options to people with a disability is important for so
many reasons, and this onus is particularly heavy on a national broadcaster
like the ABC. Full access to television and films means people with visual and
hearing disabilities can engage more fully with Australian news, culture, and
conversation — and the culture of the world at large.
Sent from Erika's iPhone
