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Not just subtitles: 麻豆官网首页入口 iPlayer redefines TV access

• By Paul Crichton
• 24 Oct 06, 03:35 PM

So, in this new media landscape with online television, sophisticated social networking and all sorts of potentially important tools for our future media consumption, who is in charge of the accessibility of this stuff at the 麻豆官网首页入口? Well, one of the key people is Gareth Ford Williams - Content Producer for Accessibility in the department they call New Media Central.

In the first in a series of interviews, we spoke to Gareth about the much-hyped 麻豆官网首页入口 iPlayer. Some say it's the most important thing to happen to television in the UK so clearly access is absolutely crucial.

"At the moment there are about eighty players on the 麻豆官网首页入口 website. The iPlayer is designed to provide one service to bring them all together. Users are going to be able to download and stream live TV, radio and probably other things we haven't thought of yet."

Tell us about the accessibility features. Will iPlayer have good old fashioned subtitles for instance?

"iPlayer is not about delivering a minimum level of accessibility - or an acceptable level. It's an opportunity to explore what accessibility is. The access services that we have at the moment, like subtitling, audio description and British Sign Language (BSL) Supported Content are designed and built around a linear** broadcast environment. As this is digital, and wholly new, iPlayer has got us thinking: 'what else can we do?' We can re-define what TV and radio accessibility means. We can try new access services around it."

So what kind of accessibility innovations are you exploring with iPlayer?

"We're looking at the traditional Access Services. Do you want audio description and subtitling simultaneously? Or do you want audio described content but don't want the visual element at all, why do we insist that you download a massive video file if you can't see, or don't want, the pictures, for instance, can we strip the video element out?

"It's a totally malleable environment online - and we're not stuck with linear broadcasting. We're playing with a lot of ideas at the moment, trying to make this as flexible as possible. Could we provide a TV transcript for deafblind people for instance? Change subtitle colours, foreground and background? More transcribed factual radio with good searchability. Perhaps using a mobile phone as a kind of remote control to display subtitles or audio description or a talking EPG? Who knows? Our work isn't just about making the iPlayer accessible for screen readers. It's about users being able to consume content, and choose the way that they want to consume that content.

One of the problems in the commercial sector is convincing key decision makers of the value of accessibility. Were there any such problems when the iPlayer was commissioned?

"There was a key paper published by the 麻豆官网首页入口 about eighteen months ago called, 'Building Public Value'. There was a phrase in the Chairman's Prologue by Michael Grade, which for me summed up what the 麻豆官网首页入口 should be doing. It was, 'Some key principles cannot be up for negotiation if the 麻豆官网首页入口 is to remain recognisably the 麻豆官网首页入口. These are that the 麻豆官网首页入口 must be available to everyone, deliver value to everyone and be open to everyone.' That to me is accessibility in a nutshell - it's not about the afterthought.

"Tony Ageh (Controller, Internet of the 麻豆官网首页入口) and I then wrote a paper on accessibility in April 2006. I think we came up with a figure of about four million existing users, and around about another six or seven million users to come on to the market that can benefit from the accessibility features of the I-player. You can't ignore a market base that big - but so many people do. That's like ignoring Scotland, or London. You don't ignore a group of people that size.

"You look at the make up of that audience, you look at ways they can be reached, you look at the costs, which are minimal really for the amount of people you can reach, you look at cost per capita and bring it altogether. It was just bringing that to light, and it doesn't become an argument anymore.

"iPlayer is there to lead by example. What we want to do is for this approach to eventually feed into everything that's coming out from Digital Services from the 麻豆官网首页入口. It's not treating this as an add-on; it's a way of reaching users."

We'll be looking at the iPlayer more in the very near future as it approaches its first big user test next month using the interface that has accessibility built into it from day one.

(**) Linear Broadcasting is what the industry calls good old-fashioned transmitting of television from one transmitter to many television or radio sets. Linear can be digital or analogue that is streamed out to people, basically.

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