Audio and visually impaired Canadians get their own channel on basic tier

For the first time ever, Canadians with hearing and visual disabilities have a dedicated channel that will feature closed captioned and descriptive audio programming from major Canadian and US broadcasters. Last week’s launch of The Accessible Channel (TAC) – which will cost BDU subscribers 20 cents each per month – will likely be the last specialty channel to receive basic tier penetration.TAC hopes to reach 6.6 million homes in its first year, generating about $13.1 million from subscriber revenues, increasing to over $20 million by year seven, according to documents filed with the CRTC. Any profits will be directed to the Media Access Trust, which distributes funds to charitable organizations devoted to enabling access to media by persons with perceptual disabilities.TAC went live across the country on Dec. 3 at 6 pm, to coincide with the United Nations International Day for Persons with Disabilities. A formal launch is scheduled for January.“We have tested it and it and it works well. It’s actually the first time in Canada that this has been used,” says Georgina Blanas, director with the National Broadcasting Reading Service Inc. (NBRS), the non-profit organization which operates TAC, VoicePrint, and AudioVision Canada.In July 2007, year, the CRTC approved NBRS’s request for a licence to operate an English-language specialty channel. It marks the first time that Canadians who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind and vision-impaired have accessed television services on a channel exclusively dedicated to them. TAC will be offered as a mandatory service as part of the basic digital package offered by cablecos, satellite, and direct-to-home services. While the bulk of the channel’s revenues will come from subscriber fees, it also projects to earn $466,000 from advertising, sponsorships and infomercials in its first year, rising to $2.1 million by 2015.TAC anticipates most of its advertising sales will be in the forms of sponsorships, as opposed to 15, 30 or 60-second brand sells. It told the CRTC it hopes to sell no more than 16 sponsorships per week for the first year, with revenues projected to represent only 10% of total revenue by year seven.“We will be carrying advertising as provided by various programs. So if CTV or Rogers or anyone has commercials, they will be carried but they will be fully described as well. There may be opportunity to sell some advertising and we will look at that because we don’t receive government funding,” says Blanas.TAC seeks one channel number statusBy the end of January, Blanas says they hope to to have one channel number across the country to facilitate easy access for the disability community, although BDUs have yet to respond to the request.“This year it will be on different channels. Let’s say 888 on Rogers, 555 on Cogeco and then the following year what we will try to do, so that it’s easy for the consumer and audiences, is to have one channel,” she says, adding that TAC is fully digital.TAC programming will be broadcast in all genres, including drama, information and entertainment, which will be acquired from CTVglobemedia, CanWest Gobal, CBC, Rogers, CityTV, CBC, the National Film Board, Audio Vision Canada as well as British and American television programs distributed by independent producers.“TAC also will acquire programming from U.S studios and other broadcast groups to fill out the 24-hour schedule, 60% of which, as a condition of licence, must be Canadian,” reads a statement from TAC. TAC has also committed to air about four hours of French-language programming per week.One of the challenges identified at the recent CRTC disability hearing is the fact that too often the intended consumers of services such as TAC have no idea that it exists. To address this, Blanas says TAC has reached out to several disability organizations around the country to spread the word.The open described video feature stands in contrast to NBRS' other licensed offering, Voiceprint, which caters to the visually impaired and is distributed through a long-standing partnership with CBC Newsworld. That service, which employs news readers in seven locations across Canada, is accessible through Newsworld's secondary audio programming (SAP).However, for those with restricted sight, navigating the series of button presses and menu commands required to turn on the SAP can be difficult. With TAC, the open described video soundtrack in the primary audio setting of millions of TV sets with digital cable access across the country is permanently in place."This is not only about convenience, but a key to social integration,” TAC chair Orvill Parkes said in a release. “The Accessible Channel will make broadcasting history allowing millions of visual impaired Canadians to be included in everything that was and is television.”According to 2001 Statistics Canada data, 610,950 Canadians identify themselves as legally blind. With an aging and large demographic of babyboomers, this is projected to climb to 700,000 by 2010 and 828,000 by 2020.

Audio and visually impaired Canadians get their own channel on basic tier

News | 12/11/2008 3:28 pm EST

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