The ACMA has found Channel Seven Adelaide Pty Ltd in breach of the captioning rules in a broadcast of 7News Adelaide on 15 December 2024.
The ACMA investigation found that captioning provided for the program did not meet the readability, accuracy and comprehensibility requirements in the Television Captioning Standard.
The ACMA's review of the program found that seven segments comprising approximately 8 minutes of the program failed to comply with the captioning rules.
The licensee advised that intermittent internet disconnections to the automated captioning system had caused captions to drop out for short periods and for random words unrelated to the audio-visual content to appear on screen.
The ACMA accepted the licensee's explanation that the failure to comply with the Captioning Standard was caused by a technical issue that it could not reasonably have foreseen. Such unforeseen technical failures may be disregarded as non-compliance under the Standard.
Seven has removed the automated system for captioning of live broadcasts in Adelaide to prevent similar issues from occurring in the future.
Since the 15 December 2024 incident, the ACMA has received no further complaints regarding the quality of live captioning broadcast by the licensee.
As a result, no enforcement action will be taken at this time. However, the ACMA will continue to monitor the licensee's compliance with the captioning requirements.
