Can We Make The Media World A Better Place?

[Commentary] The fight for TV ‘closed captioning’ -- optional subtitles for the deaf -- was taken-up and led in the 1970s by a great New Yorker, the late Julius Barnathan, President of Broadcast Operations and Engineering for American Broadcasting Company (ABC). What is between us and achieving Julius Barnathan’s dream of helping persons with disabilities to share in the media? The proportion of the population with disabilities is, barring exceptional circumstances, roughly the same in all countries: 15%, and growing in line with aging populations. Countries’ economic circumstances are, however, far from the same.

• First, a nation needs to equip its population with digital TV and radio sets and associated broadcast services, the pre-requisites for ‘access services’. They would also benefit from broadband Internet and so the first barrier is, essentially, the standard of living of the people.
• Second, broadcasters and service providers need a ‘business case’ for providing access services. These services cost money, and ‘money out’ for no ‘money in’ does not work in market economies. We need good ideas for funding access services, ideas that bring us closer to sustainable funding models that incentivize investment and reward supply-side creativity, not just people who point their finger in the air and say ‘it must be done’.
• Third, to realize the benefits of accessible media globally, access systems are in need of common technical standards. Standardization is the route to access systems applicable across the board, from broadcasting to cable, IPTV and Internet. Globally standardized access technologies will work all over the world; their manufacture and rollout will benefit from economies of scale; and their status as standards will do much to ensure that they are included in all sets routinely, so that there is no financial penalty for being disabled.

[David Wood is o-chair of the Intersector Rapporteur Group on Audiovisual Media Accessibility (IRG-AVA)]