Portion of vertical integration benefits should go to accessibility, says Access 2020

Accessibility in Canadian broadcasting is being hampered by a lack of quality control, poor funding and a mindset of charity rather than opportunity, says Beverley Milligan, president and CEO of Media Access Canada and newly formed accessibility group Access 2020. “Some of the high-level trends show some quality issues around captioning—if captions aren’t readable, is a program really captioned?” Milligan said in an interview. “And descriptive video of four hours a day is quite frankly not enough.” Access 2020 is a coalition comprised of a number Canadian accessibility groups, including the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association, and Media Access Canada. The latter is spearheading the coalition. In a Jan. 12 release, the coalition said it has turned to the CRTC to champion accessibility in the broadcasting sector. “ has asked the CRTC to support a new initiative to assist broadcasters to become 100% accessible to all Canadians, including deaf, deafened, hard of hearing, blind or low-vision people, by 2020,” the group wrote. The coalition is asking the CRTC to fund the goal “by allocating 1% of the value of vertical integration transactions to a not-for-profit fund that would finance the transition to complete accessibility on all distribution platforms.” “We truly believe that’s possible by setting out achievable goals and investing in business models and technology and research and development to bring down costs associated with accessibility,” Milligan said. Current CRTC rules around accessibility demand that all channels provide viewers with closed captioning for all programming aired overnight, from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m., when captions are “available.” Requirements for described video range from three to four hours a week, depending on a channel’s license. But Milligan said that even within those requirements, accessible programming in Canada shows a lack of consistency. Milligan added that the phenomenon is currently being studied by ARC Advisory Group on behalf of Media Access Canada. Lindsey Pinto, OpenMedia.ca’s communications manager, said in an interview that accessibility isn’t being given enough attention in Canada. “Access 2020 is really filling a niche in bringing attention to that,” she said. “Especially with things like televised political debates, political discourse, it’s really important that this be accessible to all Canadians, and there are clearly multiple gaps including social gaps and economic ones.” Milligan said the broadcasting industry often fails to see accessibility as a means to generating more business, adding that figures show that the highest usage of closed-captioning now occurs in bars and gyms with television sets. “Accessibility is seen as a charitable undertaking instead of a business opportunity,” she said. “The challenge is to not think about it as an afterthought but part of the system. When you forget that it’s about accessibility, it becomes quite integrated into the system and becomes a profit point, creating revenue and bringing in new audiences.” Milligan also stressed that the notion of accessibility as charity must be done away with. “The message that needs to get out there is that this is about opportunity, not baggage. And it’s about partnership and not challenge,” she said. But Milligan said that such a change in attitude cannot happen without funding, which is why the coalition is asking that one per cent of the value of all television ownership transactions be directed to funding accessibility. CRTC rules state that a percentage of an ownership transaction—traditionally 10 per cent—must go to “tangible benefits” for the public good. There are no specific rules, however, about how much of that funding must go toward accessibility. “Over the last 10 years, out of 10 transactions worth $9 billion which yielded $878 million in tangible benefits, a total of $5.5 million has been directed . In other words, less than a tenth of a percentage point—0.063 per cent—of the transactions’ total value,” Milligan said. Milligan said that if the coalition’s proposal is approved the one per cent would be directed to a new, not-for-profit organization, called the Canadian Accessibility Fund. The fund would in turn put the money into low-risk investments. The interest from that fund would then be used for a variety of purposes including investing in industry standards, business model development, and measurement of ongoing services and education of both people with disabilities and the CRTC. Ian Morrison, spokesman for the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, said in an interview he supports Access 2020’s aims, but did express some concern over what other tangible benefits may be nudged out by the one per cent proposal. “The values that represent and are speaking for are very important and worthy … we are on the same side,” he said. “But if the CRTC were to lock itself into the one per cent, what would happen to the other public benefits like cinema schools, university chairs or incremental spending on Canadian programming on the air? … I would be concerned about what the CRTC is effectively forcing itself to say no to.” In a follow-up email, Milligan said Access 2020 does not wish to institute a permanent change to CRTC rules, but wants a temporary funding measure to kick-start a business ecosystem around accessibility. “We are suggesting a time-lined, finite, five-year plan—one per cent of TV transactions’ value from Jan. 1, 2011 to Dec. 31, 2016,” she wrote. As to why the proposal is attached to vertical integration, Milligan said the decision was about equality. “If is going to improve the Canadian broadcast system as a whole, then that also means for Canadians with disabilities.” news@thewirereport.ca

Portion of vertical integration benefits should go to accessibility, says Access 2020

Broadcast | January 14, 2011

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