subtitles

QUESTIONNAIRE

Dear friends and colleagues,
Please help us to compare the subtitling situation in various countries by filling out this questionnaire.
It will enable international organizations to compare different conditions in various countries.
This questionnaire refers to subtitles specially intended for people who are deaf and hard-of-hearing.

Subtitles specially intended for people who are deaf and hard-of-hearing are carrying additional sound representations where important non-dialog audio has been added, as well as speaker identification, when the deaf viewer cannot otherwise visually tell who is saying what.
In this questionnaire, we will call them "closed subtitles" (as to distinguish them from "open subtitles", visible to all audience, which are intended as translation from foreign language for hearing persons).

Some European countries do not distinguish among "closed subtitles" which must be activated through a decoder from those which are visible to all viewers ("open subtitles").
In other European countries these two types of subtitles are distinguished.

This is the reason why we need to distinguish those two types of subtitles in this questionnaire.

NOTE:
Mark the correct answer and you can also write up your own explanatory note for any issue.
If you have any questions, or are unsure how to answer a question, please contact Vera Strnadova at vera.strnadova@seznam.cz
or via Skype: vera.strnadova-deaf.

Thank you very much for your help.

YEAR:
YOUR NAME:
State:
E-mail:

1.	Are people in your country required to pay for the TV license?

	Yes
	No (it is free of charge for everyone in our country)
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

2.

If people in your country are required to pay for a TV license, is there any condition attached to free or discounted TV fee for people with a hearing loss?

If there is any condition attached to free or discounted TV fee regarded to the hearing loss:

Do you need to have any special certificate?
Who and when obtains one?
The question is, what is the hearing loss that qualifies you for the discount? Or is there no difference?
It is very different in different countries and it is interesting to compare, too.
In some countries, only "really deaf", who are not hard of hearing, will get discount or free licence, therefore this leaves late deafened and hard of hearing without any discount. (Lidia Smolarek-Best)

	DEAF PEOPLE
	Free of charge for deaf persons living alone or in fully deaf families
	Free of charge when the household is in the deaf member’s name
	Free of charge if there is at least one deaf person in a hearing family
	Deaf people pay a reduced price (please specify)
	No discount for deaf people (they pay the full price - under the same conditions as hearing persons)
	I do not know
	Other

	HARD OF HEARING PEOPLE
	The same conditions as Deaf people (see above)
	Hard of hearing people pay a different reduced price than deaf people (please specify)
	No discount for hard of hearing people
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

3.	Are TV programmes subtitled for Deaf and HOH people in your country? Note: This does not refer to open subtitles for multi-lingual audiences.

	Yes
	No
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

IF YES, PLEASE CONTINUE WITH FURTHER QUESTIONS

4.	Does the government in your country help the TV companies financially, to produce closed subtitles? In some countries the public broadcasters receive money from the state to make program included the money for subtitling. (Marcel Bobeldijk).

	Yes (please specify)
	No
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

5.	Does your country have a law that requires a certain minimum of percentage of TV programmes to be subtitled?

	Yes (please specify the law and the percentage and if possible, add a link to the law)
	No
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

6.	What is the minimum amount of subtitling required by law?

	Public TV %
	Commercial TV %
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

7.

Are open and closed subtitles counted together in the mandatory percentage?

Open subtitles visible for all audience and are intended to persons who can hear, they are only written translation of a dialog in a foreign language (without added information to help viewers who are deaf and hard-of-hearing).

Closed subtitles are hidden unless requested by the viewer and always carry additional sound representations for deaf and hard of hearing viewers where important non-dialog audio has been added, as well as speaker identification, when the deaf viewer cannot otherwise visually tell who is saying what.

In some European countries these two types of subtitles are distinguished.
We are trying to find if these two types are count together to the total percentage of subtitling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing audience.

	Yes
	No
	There are ONLY OPEN SUBTITLES in our country
	There are ONLY CLOSED SUBTITLES in our country
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

8.	By law, is the percentage of subtitled programmes related to broadcasting time, or only to the number of programmes (regardless of their length)?

	The percentage is counted by HOW LONG programmes are broadcasted
	It is counted by the total NUMBER of broadcasted programmes
	It is not specified by law (and the TV station can decide how to count it)
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

9.	Are there some programmes (e.g. with sport or music) excluded from the subtitling duty in your country?

	Yes (please specify)
	No
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

10.

Is subtitling limited within a 24-hour period? (For instance, subtitles are not available during the night, e.g. from 12 am to 6 am)?

The importance of the issue above lies in the fact that in some countries, only 70% of the broadcasted programming are subtitled, but for all the 24-hour period every day, so it is comparing to the situation when in another in country is for instance 90% of programming subtitled, but only from 6 am to midnight. It is very misleading, if the company tries to provide subtitling percentage against less hours that is the whole broadcasting time. (Lidia Smolarek-Best)

	Yes (please specify)
	No
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

11.	Who monitors the amount of broadcasted subtitles? You may choose more than one answer.

	We rely on the announcement of the TV broadcaster
	We monitor and count it ourselves and read the announcement of the TV broadcaster
	We monitor it by ourselves
	Supervisory organisation monitors it (please name of the supervisory organization)
	It is not monitored
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

12.	What time period is used for the calculations? You may choose more than one answer.

	One week
	One month
	A quarter of year (three months)
	One year
	The law does not specify
	There is no law about subtitling in our country
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

13.	Do you think that all the broadcasters fulfill their duty?

	Yes
	Yes, but some TV companies are looking for ways to get around the law
	No (please specify)
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

14.	Is there any law requiring DVDs recorded in the national language to be subtitled in that language for deaf and hard of hearing users too? NOTE: This does not mean the multilingual subtitles for hearing audience, but the special subtitling for the Deaf and HoH persons.

	Yes (please specify the law and if possible, add a link to the law)
	No
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

15.

Is there any law requiring subtitling of broadcasting-on-demand (video-on-demand, TV-on-demad) in your country?

Video-on-demand is a system where users can choose and watch archived video contents at any time. The video contents can be shared via web. (Lukas Huber)
Video-on-demand can be on TV, on the internet, or both. We want to know if there is a law requiring subtitling – no matter how they get it. (Melodie Licht)

	Yes (please specify the law and if possible, add a link to the law)
	No
	I do not know
	Other

If you want to write up any explanatory note, please, write here.

Any additional comments?

THANKS FOR PROOFREADING TO:
Barbora Valentová (Czech Republic), Miron Gazda (Canada), Lukas Huber (Austria), Lauren E. Storck (USA), RuutLiisa M. Sammalpenger (Finland), Marcel Bobeldijk (Netherlands), Lidia Smolarek-Best (United Kingdom), Annika Pabsch (Germany), Melodie Licht (USA).

Created by Vera Strnadova
Programmed by Ladislav Kratochvil.