27 September 2011
Children's ITV television channel (CITV) delivered audio description on 43.74 per cent of its programmes from January to June this year according to Ofcom's first bi-annual report for 2011 on the provision of access services.
Current Ofcom regulation requires 10 per cent of programmes to be audio described by the tenth anniversary of a channel's digital licence. However most channels are exceeding this obligation by describing much more.
-
BBC 1 delivered Audio Description (AD) on 14.86 per cent in the first two quarters of this year.
-
BBC 2 followed suit and described 13.38 per cent of its programmes
-
ITV 1 described 20.36 per cent of programmes during this period
-
Channel 4 provided AD on 26.01 per cent of programmes
-
Channel 5 also described 15.09 per cent of programmes
These figures show that more and more linear TV channels are meeting the RNIB demand for 20 per cent of programmes to carry AD.
Out of the 60 channels that were required to provide AD on at least 10 per cent of their programming, 15 channels provided AD on over 30 per cent of their programming.
The following five channels delivered AD on more than 40 per cent of their programming:
-
CITV
-
Sky Movies Family
-
Sky Movies Sci-fi/ Horror
-
Sky Movies Showcase
-
Blighty
The complete report on television access services can be found on the Ofcom website.
More information on RNIB's campaign for Audio Description quota to be increased to 20 per cent can be found in our campaigns section.