ACCESSIBILITY STANDARD FOR TV PROGRAMMES FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED
13, Sep 2019
Prelims level : Governance
Mains level : GS-II- Government Policies and Interventions for Development in various sectors and Issues Arising out of their design and Implementation.
Why in News?
- In order to enhance the accessibility of television programmes for the hearing impaired, Union Ministry of Information & Broadcasting announced the implementation of Accessibility Standard for TV Programmes for persons with hearing impairment.
Highlights:
- The Accessibility will be enhanced through the provision of captioning and Indian Sign Language.
- All news channels are advised to carry a news bulletin with sign language interpretation at least once per day and all TV channels and service providers will run at least one programme per week with subtitles / captioning.
- Live news, live and deferred live content/events such as sports, live music shows, award shows, live reality shows, live debates, scripted/ unscripted reality shows, etc. and advertisements/ teleshopping content have however been exempted.
- The channels could either make their own programme with sign language interpretation, or, if they wished, carry a bulletin prepared by DD News free of cost.
- This will be implemented from 16th September, 2019. The overall implementation of the Standards will be done in a phase wise manner in the next five years. The policy will be reviewed after two years.
