6 September 2011
Last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in USA formally waved in the requirements to deliver audio description across a number of American TV and cable channels. The rules are a result of the FCC's implementation of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 and apply from October 2011 with full compliance required by July 2012.
The rules require the major television networks (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) and their partner channels to provide at least 50 hours of audio description on children's or prime time programming per quarter. These rules also apply to any cable and satellite stations with more than 50,000 subscribers, including the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, TNT and TBS.
Audio description is called video description in the USA.
In addition, a few months ago Screen Australia also announced its audio description policy. The policy requires all feature films applying for Screen Australia investment to be audio described from July 2011.
Description for all
With so many countries providing and delivering AD on television programmes and films, it is only natural for the industry to start contemplating the exchange of audio description files along with the original media across borders. For example, many Australian DVDs currently carry audio description produced in the UK.
Does it work?
In order to investigate this potential further in the UK, RNIB completed an International AD Exchange Study. Focus group sessions were used to gather feedback from ten blind and partially sighted participants. They were shown clips of American and British shows which had been audio described in the US.
Participants were then asked to comment on what they thought of the description and how different was this description to the description that they were more used to on UK television channels.
One of the purposes was to understand to what extent would factors such as local accents and dialects, different terminology, and style of AD impact users' enjoyment of the clips.
Here are a few key findings from the study:
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A majority of participants said that the origin of the AD made no difference to them.
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Participants would much rather have internationally produced AD than none at all
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Some participants thought that it was better having a program described in its country of origin as it may fit better with the program.
If you would like more information on the International Audio Description Exchange Research Study, please visit our research library.