ATTACHMENT A
b) Captioning services for repeats of television programs
i. Did you comply with the requirement under s.130ZZ to provide a captioning service for each television program that had previously been transmitted with captions on the same subscription television channel or any subscription television service provided by you? (Yes/No/Not applicable)
No
II If no, please indicate which channels did not meet this requirement and provide details. If you consider non-compliance was caused by unforeseen significant technical / engineering difficulties (s130ZZAB), please provide reasons
We confirm Foxtel’s compliance with s130ZZ to the best of our knowledge, having made reasonable enquiries. The enquiries that Foxtel have made are as follows:
1. We have requested each captioning channel group on the Foxtel platform to confirm compliance with s130ZZ within their channel group as part of their annual reporting to Foxtel on captioning compliance and captioning targets.
2. We have reviewed all Foxtel customer captioning complaint records for the financial year and analysed any instances where an identified captioning error was to a program “repeat”.
From this analysis, Foxtel is aware of a number of incidents where channels did not meet the requirement under s130ZZ. These incidents are disclosed below.
Disclosures:
CHANNEL: Showcase
Program: Game of Thrones – Season1, Ep 3
Captions for this program were integrated with the video file on the server after the content was ingested. The title was captioned when first ingested however due to a technical fault, the content was required to be re-ingested onto the server. The usual process would involve checking to ensure the content wasn’t previously captioned, however due to operator oversight this was missed in this instance and the content remained on the server for play-out without captions. This has been addressed with the operator and teams in question to ensure such errors are minimised.
The oversight affected 9 airings of the episode between 05/12/12 and 09/12/12.
CHANNEL: SF
Program: Stargate SG1 – 13/03/13
This content was re-called by the channel to adjust break structures, and was re-supplied under a new version identification. The normal process would be for the channel to re-order captioning on the new version however this was missed due to channel operator error.
The episode was subsequently re-captioned for future airings, and only affected 3 airings on the one day of 13/03/2013. The channel acknowledged that human error was the cause in this instance and apologised.
CHANNEL: Arena
1. Program: Sex in the City
Replacement tapes were received under a new acquisition contract by Arena. The series had aired previously on a number of channels including W and 111 Hits. Arena became aware that certain episodes of Sex in the City were no longer captioned. Once identified, Arena rectified the issue and ensured that the episodes were captioned. We believe that the cause was human error due to an oversight on the part of the programming team who handled this series and its transition from another channel to Arena.
As far as we are aware, the episodes affected were as follows:
Season 3, ep 6: 15/9/12, 16/9/12, 17/12/12, 2/3/13, 3/3/13
Season 4, ep 15: 4/5/13
Season 5, eps 2-8 and Season 6, eps 4 - 20: All plays July-December 2012
2. Program – The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills – Season 3, Ep 8
Two versions of this episode were supplied by the distributor. The version used for the premiere play was captioned, however due to an oversight on the part of the programmer managing this content, the version used for the repeat plays was not captioned. Once identified in July 2013, Arena rectified the issue and future airings of this episode will be captioned.
As far as we are aware, the repeat affected during the relevant financial year was:
Season 3, Ep 8: on 16/1/13.
A further broadcast was affected which is not during the reporting period - 18/7/13. As noted above, future airings will be captioned.
Remedial steps taken by Arena: Due to the two incidents noted above, Arena has reviewed its current processes and confirmed that they now re-caption all replacement materials at their time of arrival to ensure they comply with the repeat requirement.
CHANNEL: FOX SPORTS
The following channels supplied by FOX SPORTS Australia Pty Limited (FSA) to FOXTEL did not meet this requirement: FOX SPORTS 1, 2 and 3, FOX FOOTY, FUEL TV and SPEED.
FSA currently produces and delivers captions for FOX SPORTS 1, 2 and 3, FOX FOOTY, FUEL TV and SPEED on a live basis only. The production and delivery of live captions for these channels is currently outsourced under an exclusive arrangement with a third party service provider, Ai-Media.
FSA does not currently have the technology and infrastructure in place that would allow it to re-use live captions for repeats of programs which were first broadcast with a captioning service on a live basis. FSA has been investigating a solution to deliver this. The proposed solution involves the addition of extra caption inserters to the broadcast chain to enable live captions to be added before the feeds are sent to the ingest server. In order to implement this solution, FSA needs to acquire and install new equipment (including itinerant inserters and a captioning monitoring bridge), procure modifications to the software that supports the ingest and editing systems, re-write the ingest automation system program and modify its edit suites. This is because FSA’s ingest and editing systems are not currently capable of ingesting closed captions. FSA’s server manufacturer has advised that the necessary software patches will be available at the end of 2013. Once the solution has been installed, FSA will test the solution to analyse the effect of the ingestion process on the live/online captions. FSA will also modify its current workflows in order to facilitate the solution; particularly in relation to the way programs are edited (as video and audio are edited separately). If testing is successful, it is anticipated that the solution will be ready for use in February 2014.
Due to the absence of a solution to re-use live captions on repeat programs during the relevant financial year, FSA was unable to meet the obligation under s130ZZ. To have met this requirement, FSA would have had to procure live captions for each repeat program (essentially incurring live captioning costs each time the program was repeated, which could be multiple times depending on the program). FSA sought to ensure that it met the annual target (including for those channels for which it was unsuccessful in obtaining an exemption or target reduction order, namely Fuel TV and Speed, during the relevant financial year) and in doing so focussed on the live captioning of its premiere events where viewership is highest.