Ofcom has announced changes to its Access Services Code to improve the accessibility of TV and on-demand programmes for audiences.
Access services include subtitles, signing and audio description. They’re designed to help people with access needs, including blind and deaf people and those with sight and hearing loss, to understand and enjoy TV and on-demand programmes.
Broadcasters must, by law, provide access services on a certain proportion of their programming.
When Ofcom conducted a survey of the public they found a demand for greater consistency in the layout of user-interfaces and in finding accessible content.
The regulator is now expanding its Best Practice Guidelines to include, for the first time, video-on-demand providers such as ITVX and Channel 4 – already following the codes for their terrestrial outlets – and subscription services like Now and Amazon Prime Video.
Ofcom wants access services to be of a good enough quality to count towards the targets; and? when something goes wrong with access services, broadcasters must make every effort to tell their viewers what is going on and keep them up to date.
Access services remain a sensitive issue. In 2022, Ofcom found Channel 4 fell short of its subtitle quota on Freesat the previous year following an incident at its broadcast centre that took a number of channels off air.
