Legislation

The Audio Description Working Group convened by the Federal government throughout 2017 were tasked with exploring options for the delivery of AD on Australian television.

The terms of reference however encouraged the group to consider ‘alternatives to legislated requirements to provide AD services’.

The fact that there is no legislation in place in Australia mandating that broadcasters or streaming services make audio description available to their audiences is strange in both an international context but also in the context of local screen production regulation.

Australia remains to only English speaking nation in the OECD not to offer audio description on free to air television.

However, there are regulations in place to encourage screen producers to create audio description tracks.