Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he plans to take to reduce the digital exclusion of people with sensory loss.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
Government recognises the importance of Digital Inclusion. The Government Digital Service launched the Government’s Digital Inclusion Strategy in April 2014. The Strategy sets out 10 actions that Government and partners from the public, private and voluntary sector will take to reduce digital exclusion.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will review the effectiveness of existing legislation on subtitles and audio description for on-demand television.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
The Government remains committed to seeing an improvement in the provision of access services for video-on-demand (VoD) services. We have been monitoring progress of the provision of access services for VoD content since 2013 through engagement with the Authority for Television On Demand (ATVOD), platform operators and content providers. If ATVOD's 2015 annual survey of VoD services indicates that significant progress has not been made then, as stated in the Connectivity, Content and Consumers Paper (July 2013), we will consider legislation in 2016.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent discussions he has had with television representatives on the setting of targets on the provision of subtitles for on-demand television services.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
We have been monitoring progress of the provision of access services for Video on Demand (VoD) content since 2013 through engagement with the Authority for Television on Demand (ATVOD), platform operators and content providers. As part of our continuing assessment of access to such services for VoD content, we will use information from a variety of sources and engagement with relevant parties to develop a target that we would expect to see reached by mid-2016.