Investigation Report No. 3307
File No. / ACMA2014/869Licensee / TCN Channel Nine Pty Ltd / Nine Network
Station / TCN
Type of Service / Commercial Television
Name of Program / Nine Morning News
Date of Broadcast / 28 October 2014
Relevant Legislation/Code / subsection 130ZZA(4) of Part 9D of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (the BSA) and the Broadcasting Services (Television Captioning) Standard 2013 (the Standard)
subsection 130ZR(1) of Part 9D (captioning) of the BSA
paragraph 7(1)(o) of Schedule 2 to the BSA
Investigation conclusion
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) makes the following findings:
· TCN Channel Nine Pty Ltd (the licensee) has complied with the requirements of subsection 130ZZA(4) of Part 9D of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (BSA) by complying with the Standard in relation to the Nin e Morning News program broadcast on 28 October 2014 (the program);
· the licensee has complied with the requirements of subsection 130ZR(1) of Part 9D of the BSA by providing a captioning service for the program; and
· the licensee has accordingly not breached the licence condition set out in paragraph 7(1)(o) of Schedule 2 to the BSA.
The complaint
On 12 November 2014, the ACMA received a complaint alleging that the licensee failed to provide a captioning service for the program Nine Morning News broadcast on 28 October 2014, from 11am to 12pm (the program). The complainant alleged that the captions transmitted were inadequate in terms of quality.
As the complaint related to an alleged breach of a licence condition, it was able to be made directly to the ACMA without first being referred to the licensee. The ACMA has investigated, in accordance with sections 147 and 149 of the BSA: [1]
the licensee’s compliance with the Standard and consequently subsection 130ZZA(4) of the BSA;
the licensee’s compliance with subsection 130ZR(1) of the BSA; and consequently
whether the licensee has breached the licence condition at paragraph 7(1)(o) of Schedule 2 to the BSA.
The complainant also alleged that the captions transmitted for the following program broadcast at 12pm, were also inadequate in terms of quality. This matter has been investigated separately (investigation number 3308).
The program
Nine Morning News is an hour long news program, broadcast each weekday morning from 11am on the Nine Network. The program covers the latest local, Australian and national news stories, and includes segments on finance, sport and weather.
The program in question consisted of 31 distinct program segments: 27 stories, a finance report, weather and sport segments and closing remarks.
Assessment
The ACMA has investigated the licensee’s compliance with the captioning obligations imposed under Part 9D of the BSA and the requirements relating to quality set out in the Standard. The outcome of this assessment will determine whether the licensee has breached the licence condition in paragraph 7(1)(o) of Schedule 2 to the BSA.
Subsection 130ZZA of the BSA confers upon the ACMA the power to determine standards relating to the quality of captioning services,[2] with which commercial television licensees must comply.[3]
The Standard establishes minimum requirements relating to the quality of captioning services. The Standard specifically requires captions to be readable,[4] accurate[5] and comprehensible,[6] so that they are meaningful to deaf and hearing impaired viewers.
This investigation is based on information obtained from submissions made by both the complainant and the licensee, and a copy of the broadcast provided to the ACMA by the licensee. Other relevant sources relied upon have been identified in the report.
Issue 1: Did the licensee provide a captioning service for the program that complied with the Standard and accordingly complied with subsection 130ZZA(4) of the BSA?
Relevant provisions
Division 4 of Part9D of the BSA – Captioning standards
Subsection 130ZZA(1):
The ACMA may, by legislative instrument, determine standards that relate to:
(a) the quality of captioning services provided by commercial television broadcasting licensees for television programs...
Subsection 130ZZA(4):
A commercial television broadcasting licensee must comply with a standard determined under subsection (1).
Broadcasting Services (Television Captioning) Standard 2013
Section 5:
Broadcasters and narrowcasters must, when providing a captioning service in accordance with their captioning obligations, comply with the requirements relating to quality in this Standard.
Section 6:
(a) Subject to paragraph (b), when determining the quality of a captioning service for a program, the captioning service must be considered in the context of the program as a whole.
(b) When determining the quality of a captioning service for a program that is a distinct program segment within a television program, the captioning service must be considered in the context of that distinct program segment on its own.
(c) When determining the quality of a captioning service, the cumulative effect of the following factors must be considered:
(i) the readability of the captions;
(ii) the accuracy of the captions; and
(iii) the comprehensibility of the captions.
Section 8: Accuracy of captions
(a) When providing a captioning service for a program, broadcasters and narrowcasters must use captions that accurately recreate the soundtrack of a program.
(b) When determining whether captions accurately recreate the soundtrack of a program, the following factors must be considered in the context of the program as a whole:
(i) whether spoken content has been captioned;
Section 9: Comprehensibility of captions
(a) When providing a captioning service for a program, broadcasters and narrowcasters must use captions that are comprehensible.
(b) When determining whether captions are comprehensible, the following factors must be considered in the context of the program as a whole:
(i) whether the captions clearly identify and distinguish individual speakers, including off-screen and off-camera voices;
(ii) whether the captions are displayed for a sufficient length of time to allow the viewer to read them and follow the action of the program;
(iii) the extent to which the appearance of the caption coincides with the onset of speech of the corresponding speaker, sound effect or music;
[…]
(ix) the extent to which the appearance or disappearance of the caption, as the case may be, coincides with the relevant shot or scene change.
Complainant’s submission
The complaint received by the ACMA on 12 November 2014 was concerned with the quality of the captioning in the program, stating in part that:
I was appalled at the poor quality of the close captioning. For the LIVE program (News), there were frequent spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors, so much so that, at times, I could not even understand the gist of the story.
Licensee’s submissions
The licensee’s submission to the ACMA dated 18 December 2014 stated in part the following:
[…]
Nine has reviewed [the broadcast] with captions and also discussed compliance with the licence condition with its captioning service provider…
As noted before by Nine to the ACMA in relation to previous investigations, there are inherent difficulties in relation to providing live-captioned broadcasts. These difficulties encompass both technical and human elements which inevitably (though it must be noted rarely in the circumstances) result in delays, inaccuracies and inconsistencies in live-captioning services.
[The captioning service provider] used a hybrid method of captioning this programme. For the parts of the program where scripts were available from [Network] Nine, for example where the newsreader introduced each news report, captions were pre-prepared and cued out in block format. For the parts of the programs where scripts were unavailable in time for captions to be pre-prepared, for example the live crosses, the captioner switched to live re-speaking. The hybrid method of captioning reflects the common practice of captioning service providers to use pre-prepared captioning methods as much as possible where scripts or transcripts are available.
In the context of the programme as a whole, Nine maintains that the captions provided within the programme were readable, accurate and comprehensible…
Nine acknowledges that there were some isolated parts within the programme where the captions were less accurate or comprehensible, for example, there were some instances of missing captions, inaccurate or misspelled words and in some cases, a short delay in the relevant captions appearing onscreen. As [advised by the captioning service provider] these issues are as a result of the hybrid method used to caption the programme. The hybrid method results in a change in captioning mode and quality, particularly in programmes such as these where there is a combination of scripted content and unscripted, live content. In the case of this programme, the use of both pre-prepared captioning and live re-speaking resulted in:
(a) a delay to the captions as the captioner switched modes in the software and the speech recognition software processed the spoken word into text;
(b) captions being presented in snake mode rather than block captions; and
(c) more human / re-speaking errors as the captioning had not been pre-prepared using scripts.
[…]
Assessment of distinct program segments
Section 6 of the Standard requires that the quality of a captioning service must be determined in the context of the program as a whole.[7]
The definition of ‘program’ in the standard is that ‘program’ includes a television program and a distinct program segment within a television program. [8] This is consistent with the definition of ‘program’ at sections 6 and 130ZK of the BSA. Section 6 states that ‘program’ is ‘matter the primary purpose of which is to entertain, to educate or to inform an audience’. Section 130ZK states that ‘program’ excludes advertising or sponsorship matter, or a community service announcement or an emergency warning.
The definition of ‘program’ in the Standard, together with section 6(b) of the Standard, require that in the case of a program with distinct program segments, the quality of the captioning service must be considered in the context of that distinct program segment. The ACMA maintains that this approach best fits the purpose of Part 9D of the BSA, being ‘to facilitate improved access to free-to-air and subscription television by Australia’s hearing impaired community’. [9]
As the program being assessed has distinct program segments, the quality of the captioning service has, where applicable, been assessed in the context of each distinct program segment (with a list of segments and their associated captioning issues presented in Attachment A).
Assessment of captioning quality
In determining the quality of captioning, the ACMA takes into account, among other factors, the circumstances of the broadcast and the nature of the program being broadcast. The ACMA recognises that broadcasters may use different methods of captioning, live captioning, pre-prepared captioning or hybrid (combination of pre-prepared and live) captioning.
The ACMA takes the view that it is important to consider whether the captioning service provided with a program is what would be expected in the context of the program as a whole. For example, it is reasonable to expect that during a live broadcast there may be a time lag between the captions and soundtrack; and there may be spelling errors. The ACMA had regard to this fact in the present investigation, but also notes that regardless of the method of captioning, the captioning provided for a program must be meaningful to viewers.
Finding
For all distinct program segments within the program, the licensee provided a captioning service that complied with the Standard and therefore complied with subsection 130ZZA(4) of the BSA.
Reasons
While the ACMA identified a number of issues relating to the quality of the captioning service provided in the distinct program segments within the program, the captioning service for each distinct segment was considered, on balance, to still be meaningful to deaf and hearing impaired viewers and to comply with the Standard. The issues identified are listed against certain segments in Attachment A, with the key issues highlighted here:
· Delays: The captions for some segments were delayed. However, the relationship between visuals and sound was largely preserved, due mainly to the extensive use of location or related footage and other visuals.
· Spelling: There were some spelling errors, which did not prevent an understanding of the news stories overall, either because the key information had been conveyed by other captions or the misspelt words did not convey critical information.
· Incorrect captions: while certain program segments contained incorrect captions, the overall accuracy of these program segments was not significantly altered, either because of the context of the story and / or the related visual information on screen.
The ACMA found that the captioning errors in the distinct program segments within the program, did not affect the overall readability, accuracy and comprehensibility of the captioning service provided for these segments and therefore for the program overall. The captioning service provided, along with the strong visual content present, allowed for meaningful access to each of the distinct program segments within the program as a whole for persons relying on the captioning service.
Accordingly, the ACMA considers that the licensee complied with the requirements of the Standard in relation to the program and in doing so, complied with subsection 130ZZA(4) of the BSA.
Issue 2: Did the licensee comply with the requirements of subsection 130ZR(1) of the BSA, by providing a captioning service for the program, in accordance with the basic rule?
Relevant provisions
Subsection 130ZR(1) (basic rule) of Part 9D of the BSA
Each commercial television broadcasting licensee, and each national broadcaster, must provide a captioning service for:
(a) television programs transmitted during designated viewing hours; and
(b)television news or current affairs programs transmitted outside designated
viewing hours.
Subsection 130ZL(2) of Part 9D of the BSA
For the purposes of the application of this Part to programs transmitted on or after 1 July 2014, designated viewing hours are the hours:
(a) beginning at 6 am each day or, if another time is prescribed, beginning at that prescribed time each day; and
(b) ending at midnight on the same day or, if another time is prescribed, ending at that prescribed time on the same day.
Finding
The licensee complied with the requirements of subsection 130ZR(1) of the BSA, by providing a captioning service for the program on 28 October 2014, in accordance with the basic rule.