RNIB promotes the accessibility of TV through European consultations and legislative initiatives, with the support of UK members of the European Parliament.
The "Television without Frontiers Directive", now the "Audiovisual Media Services Directive" (AVMS), is the main piece of EU legislation which covers television. In 2007 RNIB lobbied successfully with our European partners for the revised Directive to contain an article on access to TV for disabled people. In particular we asked for a requirement that all EU states report on their activities to increase the levels of audio description, subtitling and other services, which help disabled people to fully enjoy television. Currently the level of these services in Europe is woefully inadequate, as we found out from a report we organised for the European Blind Union.
On 29 November 2007, the European Parliament approved the text of the Audio Visual Media Services Directive (AVMS), which had been submitted to it by the Council of Ministers. The European Parliament made no amendments to the text which the Council had agreed. The Directive has now come into force and Member States have two years to implement its requirements.
The new clause in the directive states:
"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."
We are also working at European level to ensure that digital television sets will become accessible to blind and partially sighted people. For example, we are working with the European Commission and DIGITALEUROPE, the organisation which represents TV set manufacturers, on the provision of speech output as an alternative to on-screen menus on digital TV.
On behalf of the European Blind Union, we took an innovative exhibition stand to the European Commission's December 2008 'e-Inclusion' conference in Vienna. We used the event to highlight the fact that the switchover to digital television will make finding TV channels and navigating the on-screen information more difficult for people with sight problems, unless urgent action is taken to make digital TV sets "speak" the on-screen information.
Get involved!
Would you like to campaign on European issues? If you are interested in how the EU affects you and your day to day life, contact the Campaigns team at
campaign@rnib.org.uk or through the campaigns hotline on 020 7391 2123.