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Doc 123

INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION / Joint Coordination Activity
On Accessibility and Human Factors
TELECOMMUNICATION STANDARDIZATION SECTOR
STUDY PERIOD 2013-2016 / Doc 123
English only
Original: English
Source: / TSB
Title: / ITU-EBU Meeting for Central and Eastern Europe on eAccessibility in Television Broadcasting, 3 - 4 December 2013, Zagreb, Croatia

ITU and EBU organized jointly a meeting on “E-accessibility in Central and Eastern Europe (Internet and digital television) for blind people and people with visual impairment problems”, 3-4 December in Zagreb, Croatia. The meeting was hosted by HRT Academy, which is the training center of the Hrvatska radiotelevizija (Croatian national radiotelevision).

The theme of the meeting was organized in the framework of WTDC-10 Resolution 70 “Regional initiative for Central and Eastern Europe on "E-accessibility (Internet and digital television) for persons with disabilities". The objective of the meeting was to provide assistance to Member States in order to offer e-accessibility (including Internet and information access) for blind people and people with visual impairment problems.

Three ITU staff participated to the event: Mr Vladimir Stankovic, Ms Susan Schorr and Ms Alexandra Gaspari.

An introductory session was conducted by ITU-D/BDT staff, Head of Special Initiatives Division, Ms Susan Schorr, who laid out the general notions of ITU work on accessibility. The following sessions reviewed different aspects associated with access services, and audiovisual media accessibility.

The meeting presentations provided a basis for

-  exchange of best practices in field of accessibility services for digital TV,

-  identification of gaps in the region that might be addressed in the future

-  access services for broadcasters, such as subtitling, audio description and audio (spoken) captions

The discussions focused mainly on the role of television, as a main tool for enhancing national identity, providing an outlet for domestic media content and getting news and information to the public, which is especially critical in times of emergencies. Migration from analogue to digital TV represents an ideal opportunity for ITU members to take the necessary steps to ensure TV is accessible.

Participants were managers and technical staff representatives from the Radio Television of Serbia, Serbia (RTS), RTS Digital and RTS SAT, Radio Television of Vojvodina, Serbia, HRT Academy, Croatian Radiotelevision.

ITU-T/TSB contributed substantially to the BDT led seminar: most of the presentations were given by former FG AVA experts Mr Gion Linder (Working Group A “Captioning” coordinator, Swiss TXT), Ms Pilar Orero (Working Group B “Audio description and spoken captions” coordinator, UAB, Spain), Mr David Wood (FG AVA Vice-chairman, EBU). ITU-T/SB Staff, Programme Coordinator for Accessibility, Alexandra Gaspari was invited to join for the introduction to the seminar, present the work of the ITU-T work on audiovisual accessibility and wrap up for the final remarks and conclusions.

The participants, experts and ITU staff continuously engaged in interactive discussions, brainstorming, also going beyond the timeframe assigned for the seminar. Some FG AVA deliverables were made available to participants for information and discussion. Participants were invited to comment in view of the WP2/16 and Q26/16 meeting at the end of February 2014. Participants were also invited to join the IRG AVA.

The participants from three broadcasters appreciated very much the hands-on approach of the meeting and presented samples of videos, demos, techniques used in their respective televisions for access services. The meeting adopted a set of recommendations for 2014 which will be made available on the shortly and which will be submitted for consideration of the relevant authorities of the region.

Additional info

Website of the event

Draft Agenda

A webpage was published by the Croatian national broadcaster, which can be seen here