ITV Wales drops signing for deaf
ITV Wales has been criticised by deaf people and politicians for dropping sign language bulletins from its flagship news programme.
The Wales Deaf Broadcasting Council (WDBC) said the deaf community was not consulted and it was a "severe blow". The signing for deaf viewers has been in place since February 1986.
Lib Dem AM Eleanor Burnham called the decision "outrageous" and "appalling".
ITV Wales said it was bringing Wales Tonight "in line with all other ITV regions" and that all its bulletins would "continue to be subtitled".
"ITV will continue to meet its licence obligations for signing across its family of channels", the company said in a statement. The dropping of the short bulletins will coincide with a cut in the amount of airtime devoted to news on ITV Wales from five hours 20 minutes a week to four hours a week from Monday, 9 February, agreed with the media regulator Ofcom.
WDBC said it was "very concerned that no consultation with the deaf community has taken place about this decision, neither by ITV Wales nor Ofcom".
"The statement by ITV that subtitles will be continued has no impact on those who rely on sign language, which is the preferred language of a number of deaf viewers and the medium for receiving information."
In its statement, Ofcom said it "appreciates that sign language users in Wales will regret ITV Wales's decision to end sign presented news headlines on Wales Tonight".
The regulator said that it had only been told of the plan last Friday, and "current legislation requires ITV to sign a proportion of its programming but does not require ITV to seek Ofcom's agreement to which programmes should be accompanied by signing".
Ms Burnham called ITV's move "an outrageous decision which it seems has been taken without any consultation with deaf people at all, which is appalling".
South Wales Plaid AM Jocelyn Davies said: “This decision means that deaf British Sign Language users in Wales will no longer have access to local news.
Comments
Hi, I apologise for posting under this heading but I cannot find a general post section on this site and email thing opened outlook which I do not use.
The reason I am posting here is that I work for South Wales Fire and Rescue Service Uk and I am part of a team that provides and fits FREE smoke alarms for deaf people within our Brigade area.
This is an initiative in order to enhance the prevention of fires within household properties.
This alarm system consists of a vibrating pad which is placed under the pillow and wireless smoke alarms fitted at correct locations within the property. These alarms send a signal to a control unit which in the event of a fire will activate a strobe light and make the vibrating pad activate, thus alerting the householder if sleeping to the potential hazard.
I do not know how many members of this site live within our area but please can you forward this information to people who may require this service.
Our area stretches from Maesteg in the west to caldicot in the east, cardiff in the south and Merthyr in the North.
However if anyone is unsure if they are within our bounderies they can telephone South Wales Fire and Rescue on the telephone number which I will not input here at the moment, but it is in the local directory. If you ask to speak to the Community fire safety dept regarding alarms for the deaf they will be happy to assist and inform you of our specific bounderies.
Once again to confirm that this is a totally free service.
Many Thanks
Andy
Posted by: Andy Partridge | February 6, 2009 07:48 PM