Improving Access to Broadcasting Services

The CRTC announced new requirements to facilitate access to broadcasting services. The requirements build on existing initiatives and consist of concrete measures for the more than four million Canadians living with disabilities. While certain measures will be implemented immediately, others will be put into practice gradually given the current economic climate.

During its next licence-renewal exercise, the CRTC will require that broadcasters:

• improve and monitor the quality of closed captioning, and develop standards for its delivery in digital and high-definition signals
   
• make available high-quality audio descriptions of programming, especially for news broadcasts (audio descriptions provide Canadians with visual impairments with voice-overs of the text or graphics that appear on-screen, such as weather updates, sports scores or financial data), and
   
• provide at least four hours per week of described-video programming (described video is added during pauses in dialogue to provide information on the settings, the actors" costumes or body language, or other purely visual information).

For the first time, the CRTC's requirements for described video will apply to French-language broadcasters, as well as the CBC's English- and French-language networks. This will result in the provision of described video by a minimum of 15 additional English-language and five additional French-language television services.

This announcement follows a public process that included a public hearing, which was held from November 17 to 26, 2008. 

Source: CRTC, 07/21/2009