Information Campaign Needed in Advance of Digital TV Transition

Broadcaster | March 7, 2011

Media advocacy group Media Access Canada (MAC) says the government should take steps to inform and support disabled Canadians in advance of the transition to digital television.

MAC argued the government must recognize that the broadcasting system is still not fully accessible, so concerted efforts to reach education Canadians with disabilities must extend beyond the broadcast network.

The group says that the transition will also impose a financial burden on households who will be forced to buy a new television or digital box or purchase a cable subscription.

MAC insisted that the Canadian government should put in place a program to help cover the costs to individual households and to educate the public in advance to avoid confusion and hardship.

"Imagine a deaf senior-citizen, living alone and on a fixed income who turns on her television September first only to receive no signal. She may believe the television is broken and will have to somehow discover what has actually happened," said Beverley Milligan, Executive Director of Media Access Canada. "With no opportunity to plan and budget, how will this senior navigate through the very real challenges she and others with disabilities face from what to us might seem no more than a minor inconvenience?"

A substantial proportion of the households affected by the transition to digital transmission, those with older tube televisions, will include at least one family member who uses captioning or description, MAC says, adding that these are the very people who cannot be reached by a public service announcement.

MAC says it looks forward to working closely with the broadcast community to fully achieve the Access 2020 goal of 100% accessible broadcasting by the end of the decade. The establishment of the Accessibility Fund will make Canada a world leader in broadcast accessibility, it says, adding that extra efforts must be made to cushion the impact of the digital transition on disabled Canadians.

Originally Posted: 3/9/2011 3:33:38 PM

Last Updated: 3/25/2011 12:22:28 PM