ACMA finds Prime’s broadcast of MKR final breached broadcast act over captioning
The media watchdog has ruled that regional broadcaster Prime Seven was in breach of the Broadcasting Services Act after the grand final of My Kitchen Rules initially went to air without captions.
An investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) last month has found that during the broadcast of the final, which was watched by 3.7 million viewers nationally, deaf and hearing impaired viewers were left unable to comprehend what was taking place during the first ten minutes of the finale broadcast before captions resumed.
“The ACMA’s finding is that the licensee has breached subsection 130ZR(1) of the BSA by failing to provide a captioning service for the program”, concluded ACMA.
ACMA found the breach was not caused by technical problems, with Prime Seven responding that the failure to broadcast the captions was due to a technical oversight on the part of its captioning service provider. The regulator rules Prime Seven was in breach of the act and its licence conditions.
Nine has also been disciplined by the regulator, after it was found wanting over the quality of its captions.
Following an investigation ACMA ruled that in December last year Nine News’ Melbourne bulletin had quality issues during the 6pm and 6.30pm news broadcast.
The regulator found that some segments did not contain captions, while others had varying issues around quality and that Nine was in breach of the act and its licence conditions.
“While reviewing the broadcast, the ACMA identified a number of issues relating to the quality of the captioning service provided in the remaining distinct program segments within the Nine News program,” ACMA wrote in its conclusions.
In its submission to ACMA Nine said its captioning provider had failed to go into “live” mode at the start of the broadcast.
