Have you completed our survey?

The survey is giving us some pretty good results – we love hearing all about your views.

 

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We need your help…. by Robyn Carter & Kellye Bensley

We have put together an online survey which will take you approximately 8-10 minutes to complete. We need this to go to as many Deaf and hearing impaired New Zealanders as possible to be completed. If your child is deaf, please fill this out on behalf of your child.

The link for the survey to do online is:

http://www.mbdata.com.au/captions.html

Should you know someone without access to a computer, a copy of this survey can be printed out, filled in, then posted back to:

Robyn Carter
NZ Broadcasting Access Council
32 River Terrace
Renwick
Marlborough 7204

Or it can be faxed to Deaf Aotearoa on 09-8283235

To print out a copy please follow this link.. Captioning Questionnaire

When all the results are collected, the results of the survey will be published on this website.

If you have any questions regarding the survey, please email us on broadcastingaccessnz@gmail.com or leave a comment on this blogpost.

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It’s all about FAIR access by Robyn Carter

NZ on Air receive 1.9 million dollars from the government for our captioning on TV1, TV2 and some on TV3.  From that we get 192 hours per week captioning.  Our captioning people do a great job with those 192 hours.  We cannot fault their service.

192 hours a week sounds a lot doesn’t it.  But it’s really not a lot considering what’s available overall.  It’s about choice.  I want to be able to choose what I want to watch, and not what is available for me just  because of captioning.  After all, people that can hear well,  have access to a wide range of television programming based on choice.  They don’t have to worry about whether it’s captioned or not.

Let’s do some math.

Let’s for the point of this exercise, say we want captioning between the hours of 6am through to midnight each day.  Tha’t’s 18 hours per day.  That’s a total of 126 hours per week.  There are 7 free to air channels available  in New Zealand – Prime, TV1, TV2, TV3, TV6, TV7, Maori Television.  That’s a total of 882 hours of possible captioning, of which we get 192.  A little under 25%.

Let’s add Sky TV into the mix.  They have lots of channels, so lets choose just 10 of the main ones for this exercise.  CNN, Movies, Sports, Animal Planet, National Geographic, History, UKTV, Discovery, Crime & Investigation, Disney channel.

so 126 hours per week of those 10 channels is a possible 1260 hours of captioning.  Add that to the Free to Air channels, which makes a possible 2182 hours of captioning per week.

But we get only 192 hours per week, which is only 8.9%.

Is this fair and equitable access to television for us Deaf and Hearing Impaired people in New Zealand?

I think not.

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Earthquake Day by Kellye Bensley

September 4^th, 2010 is a day that will not be forgotten by the Christchurch community.  An earthquake of magnitude 7.1 struck, from an unknown fault line that had not been noticed by the experts.  This one was a complete surprise.

Most people in Christchurch were fast asleep when they were given a rude awakening at 4:35am, way too early for their liking.  I guess Mother Nature goes by her own timetable and decided to give things a wee bit of a shake up, whether we liked it or not.

Like everyone else, Deaf and hearing impaired people wanted to know what had happened, so there were a lot of people going online to check the internet.   But not everyone has internet access and those who didn’t were watching the television as events unfolded.  I was one of the fortunate ones who did not lose power that day, so I was able to watch television news  all day,  as well as regularly checking the internet to see what was happening.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the captioning centre had made a special effort to caption the news as it was screened, live, so that we could keep up with what was happening.  Without this live news coverage, a lot of people would have felt extremely  isolated and lost.  Those without power were able to be kept updated by friends who were able to watch the news.  A few friends of mine turned up at my house as they were without power.  They were able to watch the news from my house and be kept up to date.

Because the captioning centre made this available for us, it helped many people to remain calm, to heed the advice of the authorities as they were screened, to make sure that no contaminated water was drunk, to make sure that the toilets weren’t flushed, and to tell people not to use candles in the house – all the usual safety issues that would arise in a disaster like this.  The news also helped to prepare people of the many expected and ongoing aftershocks.  Yes, people were frustrated, but at least they knew.

I also received comments from people from outside of Christchurch saying that watching the news helped to see that the people of Christchurch were okay, that there were no deaths and only a couple of serious injuries occurred which helped them to be calmer about their friends and loved ones in Christchurch.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to the Captioning Centre – you did an amazing job, on an especially difficult day!  Your efforts will not be forgotten.

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The Big Let-Down on my Return Home – by Alana Best

I have just landed back in New Zealand today.  I was very pleased to be home after a month long holiday that was a mixture of work and pleasure. I had a great time traveling, immersing myself into different cultures and countries.  The best part of that was the 100% access of closed captioning everywhere I went.

My journey from New Zealand took me to Los Angeles, USA to Vancouver, Canada, and a few weeks of travelling in Canada’s British Columbia state and National Parks, to Alaska on a cruise and back to Vancouver,  ending with a visit to San Francisco, USA, before coming home.  I had the greatest pleasure  watching TV, Sky TV, and everything to do with visual technologies everywhere you would imagine; on Disneyland rides, advertising on TV, in the malls or shops, live stream of news and sports in airport terminals while waiting for flights, vessel ports, bars, and even in restaurants. Only a few remote areas in Canada and the USA, I had to request the closed captions as their Deaf customers were few, but they were happy to provide them for me.

I was delighted to be able to listen to the sport commentaries.  It was my first time I ‘heard’ what unseen people were saying as the game was being played on screen.  There was so much information that you don’t know about, for example, sports players past records, scores and abilities.   I now relate to the players much more than before, and have gained more knowledge of sport information while “reading” while I watch the game.  In the past, in New Zealand I have just watched the game and wondered why people with hearing were laughing, booing, exclaiming and shaking their heads, while I just saw the players kicking or running. I didn’t realise that commentators had a sense of humour, and a way of describing that moment while adding some facts or assumptions which generates the reaction of those who are listening.

Coming home to New Zealand, I was happy to see my family and friends.  But in my heart, I know that back here is going to be a huge let-down after that wonderful holiday overseas that had 100% access,  compared to New Zealand’s  very little, or no access for Deaf people.  There is no subtitles or closed captions on advertising,  no access to Sky TV in public areas as Sky TV don’t provide closed captions, no access in Rainbow End or other fun parks.  With the World Rugby Cup coming up soon, it will be a BIG let-down for everyone with a hearing loss or those who require captions who will be in New Zealand during the World Cup event as they all expect the same access as they get in their own countries.  That includes the Deaf, hearing impaired and hard of hearing tourists from other countries, not just New Zealanders.

I conclude this with this statement:

The World Rugby Cup must be accessible by everyone, New Zealanders and tourists alike.  Therefore you must include the Deaf, deaf, hard-of-hearing, hearing impaired, and other people with disabilities with captioning assistance.  Closed captions or subtitles is a necessary technological  tool  that must  be included at this very important event in our host country.

Yours in sign,

Alana Best

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Captioning Sport – by Robyn Carter

About 4 years ago, I was lucky enough to be in the United States to visit my daughter.  It was midwinter, and the Winter Olympics were on.  I spent a night watching TV with a friend who was also deaf watching the olympics.  The ice skating was on.   It was captioned.  YES!  Captioned!  Sport!  Something we have yet to see happen here in New Zealand.  I learnt more about ice-skating by being able to ‘hear’ the commentators during this program, than I’ve ever learnt before.  I loved it.

We are hosting the Rugby World Cup soon.  Every western country have sporting events  available on television, and it will be captioned.  YES!  Captioned.  But not in New Zealand.  We the host country, where rugby is our national sport, and our lifeblood, do not caption it for our Deaf and hearing impaired supporters.

Nothing.  Nada.

Does this get you mad?  That once again we’re missing out?  It makes me wild.  Broadcasters should be making an effort to see that we have equal access.

So – let’s push this a bit further.  Kim Robinson has started a campaign, and you can be part of it.  Just follow the instructions below…

.

Mondayitis to Thank God Its Friday Rugby World Cup Teletext Subtitle Campaign
Monday 24th to Friday 28th August

Lets have a great week with a write-in campaign to your local MP and Rugby World Cup Minister Murray Mccully to request the Rugby World Cup Television matches to be Teletext Subtitled Live. Throughout the week Monday to Friday, ask your friends, families and everyone to write in.

Pass this information around.

If you are a MP or Broadcaster – please join us with this week to write in as well!

Write to:
Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully
Freepost Parliament
Private Bag 18 888, Parliament Buildings
Wellington 6160

Or email Murray McCully

Then, write or email your local Electorate MP or check your local telephone book for details of your Local MP.

Join us on our Facebook Petition page as well

Copy and paste this bit below for your email/letter to the Minister – don’t forget to change the Ministers name if you are writing to your MP.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Dear Hon Murray Mccully,

As New Zealand is the host nation for the Rugby World Cup 2011, we would like you as Minister for Rugby World Cup to have all the Official Broadcasters (TVNZ, Maori Television, SKY) to Teletext subtitle all the televised matches live.

There are 239,000 people over the age of 15 years old with a Hearing loss (Census 2006) in New Zealand that require this means of access to follow the commentaries on Television.  Sporting events in western countries are captioned, and we would like to see the Deaf and hearing impaired in New Zealand, have the same kind of access with captioning for the Rugby World Cup,  particularly as New Zealand is host.

Your support to ensure this to happen would be greatly appreciated.

Yours Sincerely

XXX – YOUR NAME HERE

RWC Campaign Organiser: Kim Robinson, 81 Alabama Road, Blenheim email: kimrobinson@orcon.net.nz

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Gaining Knowledge….

I met with Kim Robinson last week to catch up and try and understand some of the issues relating to captioning in New Zealand. What I have learnt so far is this..

Kim has been working with the Government to encourage captioning at election times.  The opening and closing speeches are now fully captioned. In the last elections, the electoral results were captioned live.  He is at present trying to get  the whole Electoral period  captioned (from Writ day to the creation of a new parliament after Elections). This covers any televised ‘Live’ debates between political parties and candidates.

This is quite important as it sets a precedent ,  and makes Government parties more aware of the importance of captioning, getting votes from Deaf and deaf people, and making the Deaf community understand what issues are important for each Government party.

Deaf Aotearoa send letters to Government  agencies about captioning and they have responded with incredible positivity.  For example, Civil Defence, MSD with their ‘Don’t Shake the Baby Campaign’, and the Drink Driving advertisements.

When an advertisement is captioned, a portion of that advertising revenue goes to our captioning centre which means more money for captioned programmes.  So one of the things I need to do is take note of advertisements that aren’t captioned.  I will then let  Deaf Aotearoa know and they will then send letters to those concerned with the hope our access improves.  The more advertisements that are captioned, the more money there is for Captioning New Zealand.  I’m shortly going to be in plaster for 6 weeks so this is a perfect time for me to do this.

In New Zealand, we don’t have laws as they do overseas for captioning.  The Americans have the American Disability Act which makes captioning compulsory.  In Australia there is a law that all prime-time viewing must be captioned.  In New Zealand we have nothing.  We have approached the Human Rights Commission, but there is no case to be had there as there is nothing in the Commission to cover language.  Captioning is a form of language, of the written kind.

Australia, Britain and Ireland all use the same platform for captioning as New Zealand.  That platform is Teletext.  America uses a different platform – some chip in the TV that when turned on spits out the captions on the screen.  Which begs the question – if programs in the countries using the same platform as us have captions already, why are we not getting them?  Particularly the Sky Television  channels.  It cannot be that hard to install a piece of equipment to add this service on.  There is a free-trade agreement between Australia and New Zealand so television channels such as Prime should be giving us captioning as well.

I would love to talk to someone from Sky Television about this, but can’t get past their customer service centre.  If anyone has a phone number/contact name for someone senior in Sky Television, please pass it on to me so I can talk with them.

Television programming from Australia and the UK make up about 30% of our viewing, and approximately 70% from America.  Should we be continuing with Teletext, or going the same way as America?   With TVNZ paring back the Teletext service, in the future it may be harder to find Televisions with teletext enabled, and they may be more costly like there were quite a number of years ago.

So many questions, so much to do, but slowly but surely I am hoping to get there!

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From Where I Sit…

There is no doubt about it.  Our New Zealand  captioning service for free to air Television on Channels one, two and three, do a stellar job.  Without them, thousands of people like myself would not have access to television viewing at all.

Captioning is not used just by the Deaf community.  Most people with any type of hearing impairment uses this captioning service on Teletext page 801.  And it’s not just Deaf or deaf people that are using it, but also the elderly,  people with English as a second language, and I’ve also heard that people with other disabilities find captions make their viewing much easier too.

With the advent of digital television, it was very worrying that we might lose this service when TVNZ phased out Teletext altogether in 2011/2012.  However, the Deaf Aotearoa has now been advised that TVNZ sees that it is important to continue with the captioning service, so long as NZ On Air continue to fund this.

That’s a huge relief.

But I see this as just a beginning.  This should not be an endpoint for this wonderful service, but a point where we can start lobbying and improving what we already have.

I see a number of core outstanding issues.  They are…

• Sky TV
• DVD captioning
• Laws
• Captions on TV OnDemand
• Maori TV/Prime

Sky Television..

Let’s face it.  When we travel to any other country like USA, UK, Ireland and even Australia.  Sky TV has captioning as part of the service.  We don’t.  I’d like to see Sky provide this service for us.  I personally don’t subscribe to Sky for this very reason, and I’m sure a lot of others don’t as well.  Do they not see Deaf or deaf people as part of their customer base?

DVD Captioning.

I already don’t go to movies as I miss too much of the dialogue.  Instead I have to wait for 4-6 months for the movie to come out on DVD.  A few years ago it was a given that the DVD’s would be captioned and so it was never a problem.  These days, you have to check very carefully, as now many of them aren’t coming with subtitles or captioning on them.   There is nothing so disappointing than arriving home with a DVD, ice-cream, lollies and having your own theatre experience at home, putting the DVD in and finding there’s no Captions.  It’s like a balloon deflating rapidly, and the ice-cream turns sour.

New Zealand movies are the biggest culprits of no captioning.  There’s nothing worse than reading a really good write up/rave about a New Zealand movie, waiting for the DVD to come out, to find that it’s not captioned.

How can we get across to the people bringing in these DVD’s  the importance of providing them to us with English Subtitles or Captions?  Seems to me that the Americans caption a DVD, then when they are copied for other regions, the captions are deliberately left off for some reason.  Who do we lobby for this?

Captioning with TV OnDemand

Whilst TVNZ do a wonderful job with captioning, if you miss a program and want to view it on the internet to catch up, there is currently no captioning service on this.  It would be wonderful if this could be done.  Captioning is being done on some You Tube dialogues using software that captures the word as it the character(s) speaks.  It’s not perfect, but you can easily get the gist.  I wonder if TVNZ could use this software to provide captions for those that like to use this service?  I know I would use it if I could, especially with a). no longer being able to record captions on my DVD recorder, and b). no longer able to record the channel  I’m not watching because Freeview doesn’t allow this.

Law

One of the things that New Zealand doesn’t have is a law like the ADA (American with Disabilities Act), which makes it illegal not to provide access for any disability, and in our case, captions or subtitling. I’m wondering whether we should lobby for this change?

Maori TV/Prime/TV3 News

It would be great if these could be captioned.  Someone said to me yesterday that if we can provide whole TV channels for  new immigrants coming into our country (Asian TV), why can’t they provide captioning for the Kiwi’s that live here that need this service, on as many channels as possible, including Pay TV.

Dialogue/Suggestions.

I would like to invite dialogue to this subject.  I don’t want complaints, I want ideas.  What can we do to change and improve our access to captioning?  What are your ideas?  Do you have any suggestions?

Please comment on the blog in the reply field.  All will be considered and I’ll keep updating the blog as news comes to hand.

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