§ Lord Thomson of Monifiethasked Her Majesty's Government:
What progress has been made under the Broadcasting Act 1996 in providing audio description services for visually-impaired television viewers; and what proposals for improvement will be made in the forthcoming Communications Bill. [HL6172]
§ The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Blackstone):The Broadcasting Act 1996 sets a 10 per cent target for audio description to be reached by the 10th anniversary of the start of the digital terrestrial television (DTT) service. The Independent Television Commission (ITC) has set interim targets for audio description of programmes on DTT according to the start date of each service.
118WAThe draft Communications Bill issued earlier this year extends the requirements for audio description on DTT to digital cable and satellite platforms.