8 TVBEurope Opinion & Analysis
Access all areas T
Access services provision across multiple channels makes absolute sense, writes Andrew Lambourne, business development director at Screen Systems
he last ten years have seen an ever- increasing range of content distribution platforms delivering ever-higher content
resolution. We more or less take it for granted, and perhaps forget that in the early days of HD, the conundrum ‘no content, so no sets sold, so no content’ was seen as a major hurdle. Regular HDTV broadcasting in Europe started in 2004 with Belgium’s HD1 in an effort to break this impasse. Similar barriers to adoption occurred subsequently with efforts to stimulate interest in 3D broadcasts, which appear to have failed, at least for now. Most recently, Ultra High Definition represents the next way to tempt consumers to part with cash. In parallel with increased resolution is increased platform spread, and the breakout from broadcast to broadband – which accompanied the advent of digital TV – that heralded the start of a revolution which has yet to reach a conclusion. Greater reach delivers commercial opportunities to content producers,
platform providers and consumer or IT electronics manufacturers as they target more eyeballs in more ways on more devices.
Just imagine for a second, though, if the delivery of audio at the higher resolutions and across the new platforms and devices had somehow been neglected – better pictures could reach more and more people on an ever increasing range of connected devices, but the audio was missing or unreliable. No new services would take off until the problems had been rectified, and financial clout would be brought to bear to solve the issue. Yet the industry has by and large ignored the fact that the technology to deliver subtitles across the new platforms has not kept up with the dash for delivery divergence, and accessibility is still very much hit and miss. One cannot pretend that subtitles don’t matter or don’t exist: they have been a legislated-for part of broadcast content at European Parliament level, with Member States encouraged to apply
www.tvbeurope.com September 2014
ever-increasing provision targets as channels are licensed. The wording of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive of 2010 is clear: “Member States shall encourage media service providers under their jurisdiction to ensure that their services are gradually made accessible to people with a visual or hearing disability.” However, the regulatory touch is still light. In the UK, for example, live web streams of broadcast programmes are subject to the access services requirements of television services, whereas on-demand content is not subject to statutory regulation in the same way. It then falls to voluntary provision, which in the UK is stimulated by the Authority for TV On Demand, or ATVOD. In its 2013 report, ATVOD highlights that the buck is being passed between platform operators and content providers regarding who has responsibility for ensuring that access services are delivered. Few new services were introduced during the preceding 12 months, with issues such as operational or technical difficulty, and cost, being offered as ‘obstacles’. A cynic might argue that this is clear evidence that self- regulation is not going to work: indeed, lobby groups are pressing for regulation in this area of content delivery, and government may consider this if voluntary progress is not made. The barrier of technological difficulty can, however, be removed and voluntary adoption of available solutions will reduce the chance that regulation will be eventually applied to mandate it, which the industry might be glad of. As far as production of subtitles is concerned, much of the recent development work by companies such as Screen has been to facilitate re-use across different technical platforms. This minimises on-costs: once subtitles have been prepared for given content, they can be repurposed for broadcast or streaming or VoD as required. So the cost-effectiveness of the already minimal additional cost of producing subtitles – a fraction of a percent of content production costs – is increased the more platforms are addressed. So, cost cannot really be cited as a barrier. Ultimately, the true value in access services is in the delivery of additional audience – not just people with hearing impairment, but also those who use subtitles to assist with language learning. In a world where eyeballs count, access services provision makes absolute sense across as many platforms as possible.
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