The accessibility gap on streaming in India
The Hindu
Despite the boom in Over-the-Top (OTT) streaming services in India, there is a huge gap in the accessibility of content for visually and hearing-impaired viewers. However, regulations for streaming in India explicitly recommend that streaming services make an effort to have their content be accessible.
Despite the boom in Over-the-Top (OTT) streaming services in India — a report by Media Partners Asia released this month estimates that one leading platform is closing in on 20 million paying subscribers — there is a huge gap in the accessibility of content for visually and hearing-impaired viewers. However, regulations for streaming in India explicitly recommend that streaming services make an effort to have their content be accessible.
The IT Rules, 2021 cover a vast swath of the internet, from regulating social media intermediaries, setting out a framework to discourage platforms from letting users post what the Government considers misinformation, to requiring streaming services to submit to a three-tier grievance framework to address user complaints on web series and films. One aspect of the IT Rules that have not received much attention (or compliance) is their pitch for accessibility for persons with disabilities.
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The final provision of the Code of Ethics that OTT platforms like Netflix, Hotstar, and Amazon Prime Video have to adhere to, is a nudge to “take reasonable efforts to improve the accessibility of online curated content transmitted by it to persons with disabilities through the implementation of appropriate access services.” These are a likely reference to two key technologies: closed captioning and audio description.
Closed captioning
Closed captioning, unlike regular subtitling, describes the sounds and background music score in a film or TV show, an important resource for deaf and hard of hearing people. Audio description tracks describe what’s happening on screen for blind and visually impaired audiences.
While the IT Rules Code of Ethics pushes for these technologies to be more widely adopted, streaming services — specifically those run by Indian firms — have largely not done so. The most glaring example is the lack of closed captioning on the Indian Premier League on JioCinema, the highest-streamed sporting tournament in the world online. Disney Star, which owns the television rights, announced in March that they would release a subtitled feed of all the matches in the tournament, but JioCinema has not made a similar accommodation. (A Jio spokesperson did not respond to a query by The Hindu.)
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