BAI launch new Access Rules in accordance with
their responsibilities under the Broadcasting Act 2009

On May 14th 2012 the BAI launched the new Access Rules in accordance with their responsibilities under the Broadcasting Act 2009. The Access Rules detail obligations on broadcasters to provide accessible television for Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Visually Impaired people, including programmes with subtitling, Irish Sign Language (ISL) presentation and Audio Description (AD). The publication of the Access Rules follows a consultation process with stakeholders earlier this year, and it is clear from the 2012 Access Rules, that the BAI have ignored the recommendations made by organisations representing Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Visually Impaired people.

DeafHear is very disappointed with the new Rules which have targets that are actually LOWER than the 2005 version. DeafHear believes that the BAI did not listen to the views of the representative groups of Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Visually Impaired people, but was sympathetic of the views of broadcasters who have consistently failed to meet their targets in the past. Not only were broadcasters not admonished by the BCI/BAI for failing to meet their targets, they were actually rewarded by the introduction of regressive targets in the new Access Rules published today! DeafHear will be contacting the Minister for Communications in the near future along with other organisations.

To read DeafHear´s press release and further information, please see below:

Resources File Format Size Download DeafHear.ie Access Rules Submission Jan 2012 99 kb DeafHear.ie PR Access Rules 140512 32 kb To view the TV Access Coalition press release click here: www.tvaccess.ie The following above file has been saved as Adobe Acrobat PDF file. You will need to have Adobe Reader installed on your computer. If you do not have Adobe Reader on your computer simply click the button below and follow the simple steps.