Europe

BBC has long enjoyed a central position in the development of television. The British public service network also sets the standard for TV subtitles. BBC already provides subtitles for more than 80% of the programming on its channels, BBC1 and BBC2. The corporation aims to subtitle 100% of its programming by 2004. The smaller BBC channels, such as BBC Three, BBC Four and BBC News 24 are also among the leaders in subtitling. These channels provide subtitles for about 50% of their programming. (For information on UK accessible cinema, visit: www.yourlocalcinema.com.) ARD and ZDF are among Germany's national TV networks. ARD provides around 1,000 hours of closed captioned or subtitled programming per year. No precise numbers are available for ZDF, but the extent to which ZDF provides captioning for hearing impaired viewers is estimated to be comparable to that of ARD. Captioned programming includes the main evening newscasts daily at 8 p.m., documentaries and such entertainment programming as soap operas, crime shows and important sports events. A large number of films and special events, such as parliamentary debates, are also closed captioned or subtitled. Prior to August of 2000, no law regulated the accessibility for hearing impaired people to the terrestrial channels in France. Since then, varying minimum requirements for captioning for hearing impaired viewers have been implemented, based on different sets of criteria for different channels. In most cases, in France, a minimum of 10-15% of the scheduled programming must be closed captioned or provide subtitles, at present. Increased required availability of subtitles or closed captioning is being phased in over a number of years. By the end of 2008, at least 50% of all programming must offer captions. In Spain, as in many other European countries, there is no law regulating the amount of captioning by TV stations. Each station determines its level of commitment to the hearing impaired population. In 2001, the Spanish national TV networks, TVE-1 and La 2, provided around 900 hours (about 10% of total programming) and nearly 400 hours (about 5%) of captioning, respectively. Closed captioning or subtitles has increased approximately 25% in 2002. TVE aims to provide closed captioning for 50% of its programming in the near future. Norway has also set targets for TV captioning. At a minimum, one half of all programming in Norwegian must be closed captioned or subtitled by the end of 2005. The Norwegian parliament, Stortinget, passed legislation to this effect on the 13th of December, 2002. The requirement includes the viewer license funded NRK TV, including live transmissions. This means that the station must employ existing technology in captioning live transmissions. The Swedish parliament has determined that Swedish closed captioning or subtitles must be provided with at least 50% of new programming by 2005. The state run Swedish TV, STV, aired around 2800 hours of subtitled or closed captioned programming in 2000. Of this, more than 1100 hours were new programmes. Unlike Norway and Sweden, Denmark has no law defining the degree of closed captioning of TV programming. But subtitles are available for approximately 2000 hours of Danish television per year, 23% of the programming, on the national DR1 and DR2 channels. In addition, a daily news show and a weekly show for deaf viewers are broadcast in sign language. The commercial national channel, TV2, provides around 5500 hours of programming per year. Around 650 hours of this programming is captioned.