Marcel Bobeldijk, President of European Federation of Hard of Hearing People
Board member International Federation of Hard of Hearing People
NVVS (The Netherlands), JOSH! (The Netherlands)
Thank you chairman, Good morning
I' am happy that I can say some words about subtitling and sign language to you. At this moment I' am the president of EFHOH the European Federation of Hard of Hearing People in Europe. In a good co-operation between EUD, IFHOHYP, FEPEDA and RNID we work together for more subtitling and sign language on TV for children and adults and for the movies in the cinema. A good example of our teamwork between EUD, FEPEDA, RNID and EFHOH is the special leaflet about subtitling and sign language on television.
EFHOH is the European Federation for the national organisations for Hard and Hearing people. EFHOH have at this moment 29 members across over Europe. EFHOH work very close together with IFHOH-world, the world wide federation of organisations of Hard of Hearing people. The Finish Federation of Hard of Hearing people organised in behalf of IFHOH-world the 7e IFHOH world congress in Helsinki, the theme of this congress is Accessible Communication: Information Society for All. In my presentation today I talk about one of the most important way of information at this moment and that is Television.
Many millions of European citizens are deaf or have a significant hearing loss. In the EU members state and the other European Countries there are in 2005 81,5 million people in Europe are deaf or hard of hearing and in 2015 is the figure will be 90 million people in Europe.
At this moment there are in the European Union 22 million people with severe or profound hearing loss.
That means that one of the seven people in Europe have hearing difficulties.
Subtitles are vital for deaf and hard of hearing children and more subtitling of children's television programmes is necessary! It is also important to provide sign language on children's television for deaf children who are to young to read subtitles.
We see in Europe that hearing problems come by a lot of people's later in the life. The most of our parents or grandparents have some problems with hearing the television and conversations.
Organisations for hard of hearing people all over Europe hear the same excuses for the lack of subtitling. We are told that it is too expensive and that there is a lack of good subtitling technology.
Why is subtitling lacking in the most EU members states and outside the European Union? Because there is no legislation on national level and not at European level. The UK is one of the few countries at moment that has a law about subtitling on television.
On 4 September 2003 the European Parliament has say Yes to the resolution Television Without Frontiers. This is a very important resolution because all the Member States must making a national action plan about how the Member States make television accessible for people with disabilities. The national action plans should cover quantity, technical standards promotion and dialogue with disability groups. I hope that the European Commission will establish a benchmarking report and the e-Europe Action plan 2005 will monitor progress on making TV-accessible.
A lot of people believe that subtitles are expensive. That few people would use them. That they would irritate other viewers. That it is difficult to produce subtitling on television.
No requirements for EU members states to provide services for sensory impaired people. Changes may be possible through the Television Without Frontiers. Two EC directives - framework and universal service. All European citizens have a right to enjoy the full benefits of new technologies. This includes subtitling of all the programs on television.
In the Netherlands subtitling costs +/- 1% of the total of the production costs. Of course the costs of the first 10% subtitling of TV program's are high but the marginal costs do fall dramatically the more subtitling they do.
And more lower when the broadcasters in the different EU countries with the same language working more and better together.
It is strange when a Belgium TV program is subtitling in the Dutch language with subtitling and the same TV program comes later in the NL on TV without subtitling sorry for me is that strange.
A example about the costs of subtitling from Norway HLF the Norwegian organisation for Hard of Hearing People has paid the subtitling costs for a film. The total production costs for this film was about 6 million Euro a large part of this was a governmental grant (taxpayer's money). The PR budget was 540.000 Euro. The subtitling costs was only 24.000 Euro!
In the UK we see that subtitling on adverts works but only half of them are subtitled so advertisers are not reaching many consumers!
Hearing people find more and more subtitles when it is noisy in the room, on the phone etc. etc.
And the good news is that subtitling creates a new industry and jobs.
On national level there are in some countries subtitling campaign. In the UK was a postcard campaign. As a result of their campaign work, UK has at this moment the highest subtitling % in Europe and a subtitling law that provides subtitling from the commercial channels.
Sweden has a successful poster campaign in 2002. The poster have the text "the government has chosen to put their fingers in their ears" was places on buses public places and other places easy to see for everybody in Stockholm and seven other big cities in Sweden.
Norway and the Netherlands has used the direct lobbying method. In the NL are at this moment 75% subtitling on the three public chancels on the 7 commercial chancels are no subtitling. The Dutch government have promised in a letter that in 2010 all the TV program's have 100% subtitling on the three public chancels and on all the commercial chancels.
The Swiss organisation made a petition with more than 10.000 signatures of people who support their campaign. The petition was presented to the government.
Digital television will be the most important driver in our modern society. A lot of technical standard can you find in the CENELEC "TV for All" report. In this presentation I call some important subject about subtitling on digital television.
Has vastly improved text (front). Better colours and icons possible. Can have graphics. Size altered by broadcaster. When show on screen forms part of picture. Can be recorded along with picture on analogue VCR. Wireless connections between devices such as Blue Tooth?
The e-Europe 2005 Action Plan requires Member States to publish their plans for the switchover from analogue to digital television. This is important for disabled and elderly people in two inter-connected ways:
In the most EU members states, little or no subtitling, no audio description and signing.
On screen message have no voice equivalent and are sometimes hard to read. Remote control difficult to use.
Complex symbols and terminology. Navigation of menus confusing.
Dual standard subtitles? User chooser for text height, colour etc. Down loading film with subtitles? Video streaming on the "net"? Interactive television with subtitles? Voices driven commands? Web cams with subtitles using instant speech to text?
I have great hopes for the project of voice recognition via computer for hearing impaired people.
Television is the most important media for news, sport, entertainment, education and polities. Subtitling is important for our democracy because today the most important political discussions takes place on television. With their questioning- and discussion programmes television set the agenda for political debate in the society. Especially before an election takes places, the political parties use television to express their opinion about important questions and present their political programmes. I hope so that by the next election for the European Parliament deaf and hard of hearing people are included in the information and political debate. When they are without this information it is difficult to make our decisions. And a lot of deaf and hard of hearing people do not vote. Democratic countries should this problem more seriously.
News, and there is a lot of news the world. Of course it very misery that a lot of deaf and Hard of Hearing people has not the possibility to look to the speeches of president Bush in the time of the Iraq war.
Sport, a other example I and many other deaf and Hard of Hearing people like to look football and of course we like to look to the match of our national team. But there is one problem for me and many other deaf and HOH people in the NL the match's of the national football team are on television by a commercial television chancel without subtitling. It is very unacceptable. It give me also a social isolation because everybody on my work has see the match and they can talk about this.
Entertainment. Education, subtitling is not alone important for deaf and HOH people, it is also important for people from outside that learn a new language and for the education of children with starting or has some problem to read a book.
For children is it important that the subtitling have a lower speed.
81 million deaf and hard of hearing people. It is important to remember that many hearing people will also benefit subtitling. People learning a second language, children and adults with learning disabilities and children starting to read. For elderly people and for many more.
In this century television plays a major in the structure of our society. Television is used to inform-educate, and to entertain people. It is used as a forum where people can voice their opinion. Values are shared trough TV Without access to TV millions of people in Europe are in the European Union are effectively excluded from a major part of the society we all live in. We all know that is wrong. We want subtitles, sign languages interpretations we want access to TV. We want to be a part of the society!
So that EUD, EFHOH, FEPEDA, IFHOHYP and RNID have one goal and that is: 100% subtitling in a e-Europe.
Thank you.
Speech held at the occasion of the European Conference on "Access to the Information Society" in the Residence Palace, Brussels, on 25 February 2004.
