Marcel Bobeldijk, President, EFHOH
EFHOH is the European Federation of Hard of Hearing People with at the moment 29 members across Europe. EFHOH works closely together with EUD, IFHOHYP, FEPEDA and RNID. One example of the output of this collaboration is a special leaflet about subtitling and sign language.
About 81 million people in Europe are deaf or hard of hearing. And in the EU member states have 22 million people with severe or profound hearing loss.
Why is subtitling lacking in some EU countries: because there is no legislation on national level and not at European level. On 4 September the EP has agreed to the TWF resolution. Important is the benchmarking report and e-Europe Action plan 2005.
The Good News: subtitling amounts to only +/- 1% of the total production costs. Several EFHOH member states have subtitling campaigns running. Subtitling on adverts has been shown to work and subtitling creates also a new industry and new jobs.
Digital television will be the most important driver in our modern society. Digital information is more flexible than analogue and is cheaper to produce.
Why Subtitling: Television is the most important media for news, sport, entertainment, education and policy. Subtitling is very important for our democracy!
For who: 81 million deaf and hard of hearing people across Europe. In addition many hearing people will benefit from subtitling. People learning a second language, children and adults with learning disabilities, children starting to read as well as elderly people.
Conclusion: Television without subtitling mean that millions of people in Europe are excluded from a major part of the society.
