Chapter 4 - Captioning and other important issues
Captioning standards
4.1
Under the amendments made to the Broadcasting
Services Act 1992 through the Television Broadcasting Services (Digital
Conversion) Act 1998, a requirement was introduced for the determination of
a captioning standard. Subclause 38(1) of the BSA requires regulations to be
made determining standards for the closed captioning of television programs for
the deaf and hearing impaired.
4.2
With the introduction of the Broadcasting
Services Amendment (Digital Television and Datacasting) Bill 2000, the
Government has outlined the captioning quotas applicable to metropolitan
licence holders from 1 January 2001 (at the start of their digital broadcasts).
Regional broadcasters will need to meet the required captioning quotas when
they begin to broadcast in digital mode. The quotas proposed by the Government
are:
- all prime time viewing hours programming; and
- all news and current affairs programming outside these hours.
4.3
Item 128 of the Bill amends the captioning
requirements of Subclause 38 to exempt a television program (or part of one)
that is wholly in a language other than English and to exempt incidental or
background music and television programs whose audio component consists only of
music “that has no human vocal content that is recognisable as being in the
English language”.[1]
4.4
The Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill states
that:
An estimated 1.7 million deaf and hearing impaired Australians
have limited access to free to air television services.[2]
It also quotes a table that shows that
overall, about 19% of all television programs were captioned last year.
4.5
The Committee received 8 submissions on the
issue of captioning. Three in favour of the captioning requirements in the
legislation (two of those requesting a move to full captioning, by 2005 – in
the case of the National Working Party on Captioning – and in the case of Mr
Tayeh, full captioning of the Olympic Games and subsequent major sporting event
broadcasts).
4.6
The Australian Caption Centre stressed in its
submission that it was:
well advanced in its preparations for assisting the broadcasters
in complying with the proposed legislation by the start-up date of 1 January
2001.[3]
and that:
There are no technical or human resource impediments to implementing
the legislation as proposed by the Government’s Bill.[4]
4.7
In addition to recruiting stenocaptioners
overseas and training more local stenocaptioners, the Centre told the Committee
that it was testing remote live captioning to avert the difficulty of television
stations having to find stenocaptioners in rural and regional locations.
4.8
Five submissions, one from FACTS and four from
regional television broadcasters pointed to the costs and operational
difficulties they would face in meeting the captioning requirements.
4.9
WIN Corporation’s Chief Executive, Mr John
Rushton explained his difficulties to the Committee in these terms:
I can quickly tell you how we put news to air in, say, Victoria.
We have journalists and cameramen right across the state. We produce six
different news bulletins a day. All of those go to air from our mother station
in Ballarat each night at 6 p.m. So five of them are prerecorded and the
sixth one is going to air live. Those stories are coming in on the microwave
link to Ballarat probably from about 2 p.m. onwards and they are all
edited remotely. Then there is a producer in each area putting each bulletin to
air. So there could be some stories still coming in from areas, say, at 4
o’clock when it has to be prerecorded at 4 o’clock, so they get slotted in
further down the bulletin. As soon as they have done the prerecord for the
4 o’clock one—and the prerecord is just for the intros, and it probably
takes 10 or 15 minutes per bulletin—they then move on and do the next one and
so on down the track.
For us to have that done remotely would mean that we would have
to send a story up the line somewhere to the remote position for them to view
it and then steno it—or whatever the terminology is—and then send it back to
us. There just would not be time to do it because we do this prerecorded
technique so we can offer a lot of different news bulletins to the community.[5]
4.10
In its submission to the Committee, WIN
suggested that an American automatic captioning system called the electronic
newsroom (ENR) might provide a partial solution to the
problem. Using that approach, each bulletin would have the presenter’s
introduction and journalists’ voiceovers captioned as well as full captioning
of weather and news updates. The Committee raised the ENR
issue with the Australian Caption Centre’s Mr Robert Scott who answered:
The electronic newsroom system can work in a situation like that
if the text files are there for everything that is going to air. If they are
not there and you have live interviews or taped items or taped stories from
overseas where a script is not available, then there will be no captioning
there unless somebody creates it.[6]
4.11
Mr Scott pointed out that some regional stations
appear to be able to caption at reasonably low cost:
One thing we did notice when we were looking at how the news was
put together in some of these regional television stations is that in a lot of
cases where the news is being put together on a shoestring budget where they
have the small staff numbers, which Senator Calvert referred to before, they
tend to produce a lot more of the bulletin in advance and they tend to ensure
that everything in the bulletin is scripted on a central newsroom computer
system. There was one station, in particular, that we looked at in Mount Gambier
which was a very small operation and ironically it worked out that captioning a
news bulletin like theirs was very inexpensive. I think in one of our
submissions to the review we indicated that they could probably do their
bulletin for maybe $50,000 a year. That was mainly because it was produced so
far in advance and everything was scripted and any national items were on a
news service that was coming from major metropolitan networks and would already
be captioned. [7]
4.12
Ms Clark from the National Working Party on
Captioning argued strongly for the requirement for full captioning of news by
regional broadcasters to be maintained:
I still stand by my previous point that I believe that all prime
time captioning is achievable and I believe that people in the regional areas
should not miss out. I know that when the announcement was made by Channel 7
that one of the regional television stations would be captioning their news
there was a lot of enthusiasm and support from the community and it made life a
lot more accessible for those people in those regional areas. I think the
country people are isolated enough, and if you are talking about a deaf or
hearing impaired person in the country then they have that double isolation.[8]
4.13
The Committee supports the Government proposals
for captioning quotas as a means of ensuring access to information for hearing
impaired television viewers. However, the Committee recognises the particular
difficulties faced by regional television in one (solus) and two-station
markets and would hope that the Government will consider the other options
proposed by regional broadcasters.
Reviews required under the Bill
4.14
In addition to the reviews of the process of
introduction of digital television already in the BSA, the proposed Bill
requires a number of other reviews to be carried out in the next few years
after digital television broadcasting commences. These are:
Before 1 January 2004
- whether the provisions relating to HDTV quotas should be repealed
(proposed subclause 60 A of Schedule 4);
- the regulatory arrangements for transmission of TV programs by
commercial television broadcasting licensees in HDTV digital mode in remote
licence areas (proposed subclause 60 A of Schedule 4);
- the regulatory arrangements that should apply to the transmission
of television programs by national broadcasters in HDTV digital mode in remote
coverage areas (proposed subclause 60 A of Schedule 4); and
- whether any amendments should be made to Schedule 6 which sets
out the regulatory scheme for datacasting (clause 61 of proposed Schedule 6).
Before 31 December 2005
- the provisions associated with additional commercial television
broadcasting licences in solus and two-station markets (proposed subclause 60
(1) of Schedule 4); and
- the regulatory arrangements and revenue arrangements (if any)
which should apply to enable a datacasting transmitter to be used on or after 1
January 2007 to provide other services licensed under the BSA (proposed
subclause 60 (1) of Schedule 4).
4.15
Whilst not in the legislation itself, the second
reading speech indicates that the ABA will receive a reference from the
Minister to examine whether services such as streamed audio and video,
available on the Internet are, legally, broadcasting services. It is expected
that the ABA will examine this issue in the context of the general convergence
of broadcasting with other services and report within twelve months of the
passing of the legislation.[9]
4.16
In response to questioning from members of the
Committee, a number of witnesses urged that the timing of the various reviews
should be brought forward and that they should be undertaken as soon as
possible as there is still a degree of uncertainty about the regulations in
some areas.
HDTV Quota Review
4.17
There seemed to be some confusion at the public
hearings about the nature of the proposed review. Some witnesses suggested
that a review should be conducted into the viability of HDTV in the Australian
context and the likelihood of commercial FTAs offering very much HDTV on their
loaned 7 MHz of spectrum. However, the proposed review is to examine whether
HDTV quotas are still necessary and not to re-visit Government policy decisions
about HDTV as a basis for the introduction of DTTV.
4.18
FACTS expressed the view in its evidence to the
Committee, that it is difficult to know what the right time for the review is,
however, there should be a couple of years to test the market, both in terms of
equipment and program availability. FACTS had not considered whether the
review should be statutory or departmental and stated that either would be
acceptable.[10]
4.19
The ABC supported this view:
We know that the take-up in the early stages will be low, so
there is a question of how robust the data will be if you do the review too
early.[11]
4.20
ASTRA called for an immediate statutory review
to determine if HDTV is to go ahead or not
In fact, the impression I got listening to FACTS yesterday was
that nothing will happen with HDTV in the next two years. So, based on that,
ASTRA feels: why wait two years; why wait until 2004 for the review; why not
have the HDTV review right here and now? Let us bring it forward. Let us have
it and let us clear the air once and for all on whether this is a dead duck or
whether there is some validity in HDTV.[12]
4.21
ASTRA argued that if the review found that HDTV
would not go ahead, the FTAs would no longer need 7 MHz of spectrum and the
unused spectrum should be returned to Government and auctioned.
Can I just add to that in terms of bringing it forward. There
has to be an outcome. If the decision is that HDTV is not a goer, then the
outcome must be that that spectrum goes back to public auction. That is part of
the review. There needs to be a reconsideration of that, because that was the
original decision and one of the main planks of the decision in the first
place.[13]
Schedule 6 and regulatory scheme
for datacasting post 2006 reviews
4.22
In its evidence, Fairfax called for more
information to be given about the proposed review of datacasting regulations
and expressed the view that this was necessary so that datacasting licence
bidders might obtain some certainty:
We certainly think there should be guidelines, legislative
guidelines, as to how those reviews should be undertaken and what should be
taken into account. Given the importance of the scarce resource that we are
talking about, public review is better than private review. Most importantly,
there is a need for certainty. I can understand the notion that none of us are
quite sure how this service will develop and how indeed other services which
may be provided through spectrum will develop as well. So I can understand the
notion of a review period. But I think it is very important that the people
who are thinking of bidding for these licences have a clear understanding of
what are the terms under which those reviews will be carried out.[14]
4.23
Telstra also supported the statutory review
approach and the need for certainty as quickly as possible and indicated that:
Ideally, to give you certainty, you would have the review before
you had to fork out for the licence. But the practicality of that seems to be
not there.[15]
4.24
Telstra indicated that the pertinent issues for
the review into post 2006 regulatory arrangements should be:
to address issues of convergence. A lot of the issues that have
been addressed by the Productivity Commission need to be considered. The
fundamental question seems to be: to what extent can converging industries,
including broadcasting, be liberalised?
Telstra has a preference for the provisions in this bill for the
separation of the spectrum licensing process from the service licensing
process. We would like to see spectrum licensing subject to market based
principles as it is in telecommunications today—namely, auctioned with a
presumption of renewal. In relation to services licensing and broadcasting or
other content type services, it would happen presumably under the ABA,
similarly to how it does now.[16]
4.25
In evidence to the Committee, Optus indicated
that it too is concerned at the degree of uncertainty which exists in relation
to possible regulations for datacasters post 31 December 2006.[17]
4.26
FACTS agreed that the situation post 2006 is
fuzzy at present and resolution sooner rather than later would be beneficial.[18]
ABA reference on streamed audio and
video as broadcasting or datacasting
4.27
When questioned by the Committee, FACTS agreed
that this review should be conducted urgently, preferably prior to the
commencement of digital broadcasting and datacasting.[19]
4.28
The ABC was of the view that its Board should
make such decisions about ABC programming. However, if the ABA had to do the
review, it should be done earlier rather than later.[20]
Australian content
4.29
A number of submissions referred to the effect
that conversion to digital television transmission could have on the Australian
film and multimedia production industries. The matter was also raised in
evidence to the Committee. The Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA)
called for a quota system to be introduced requiring that the 20 hours of
mandated HDTV should be original, first run Australian content and pointed out
that:
Australian programs contribute to the community’s sense of
character, identity and reflect its rich diversity and history. [21]
4.30
SPAA also asked that content shot on 35mm film,
Super 16 film and high definition video should be counted as high definition
production format for the purpose of meeting the 20 hours HDTV quota.
Recognising the high cost of conversion for Australian producers, SPAA suggests
that the licence fees of commercial broadcasters should be increased and the
additional funds collected used to assist the independent production sector.
4.31
FACTS told the Committee that there would not be
any Australian program available for digital transmission “initially”:
That is for a number of reasons, the most significant of which
is that there are no real HD capable production facilities at the moment.
Naturally, the networks have been focusing on the first order of business,
which is getting the transmission structure up and operating. Production
facilities have always been seen as the second stage. I would not expect any
serious progress on that front until well into next year.
... It is likely that commercial television stations will want to
present their most popular programming in high definition as early as they
sensibly can. At least five out of the top 10 programs on commercial television
in any week are local programs; often it is seven or eight. Some of those
programs may be very difficult to produce in high definition television for
some little time. [22]
4.32
The Productivity Commission’s Professor Snape
argued that in the longer term it would become necessary to have an inquiry to
look at other means of reaching a minimum acceptable standard for Australian
content in the digital broadcasting and datacasting environments:
We said, ‘Leave most of the existing quotas in place for the
time being because taking them off would be disruptive at a time of change; but
have an open, public inquiry into the desirable means of pursuing the cultural
and social objectives that would target the sources of the social and cultural
production rather than the platforms on which they are disseminated.’[23]
4.33
The Committee recognises that Australian content
is a very important issue in this debate and it believes that the situation
will have to be monitored closely in the first two years after conversion to
assess the impact of digital television and datacasting on the levels of
Australian content available through the new services.
Interoperability
Audio standard
4.34
In the second reading speech introducing the
Bill, the Government stated:
As part of the requirement to provide SDTV at all times, the
government expects that broadcasters will provide an audio stream using the
MPEG sound standard. The government would encourage the industry to reach a
common position on this issue, but may be willing to consider regulating a
standard, using existing powers in the legislation, if this appears necessary
in the interests of consumers.[24]
4.35
In its submission, FACTS did not refer
specifically to the audio standard but indicated its strong support for the
principle of common technical standards across all digital
program and datacasting service ‘platforms’.[25]
4.36
ASTRA called for MPEG to be adopted as the
common audio standard. The Committee received a submission form Dolby
Laboratories supporting AC-3 sound technology the system for which FACTS has
indicated a preference.[26]
4.37
In answer to a question from the Committee about
the interoperability of set-top boxes, Mr Colin Knowles from the ABC stated
that:
All of the boxes currently sold in the US are in fact
multistandard compatible. There are no boxes sold in Europe that are HD and SD
because nobody is broadcasting in HD ...
It is technically possible. In fact, the chip designs are
already done to do that. Likewise, the same argument applies to the audio standard.
The chip that can decode AC-3 and MPEG is already in place in almost every DVD
player that is sold.[27]
4.38
The Committee’s view on this issue is that it is
in the interest of all involved and especially in the best interest of the
consumer that the systems used should be fully interoperable. Furthermore, in
view of the rapid changes in technology in this area, the Committee concurs
with FACTS’s comment that if standards need to be mandated, whatever standards
are adopted, should:
... wherever possible be open standards which allow the “headroom”
necessary for the 20 or more years service expected from the DVB-based digital
transmission system.[28]
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