Broadcasting

Legislation/regulations

Analogue TV

There appear to be neither direct legislation nor regulations regarding accessibility of broadcasting services in Belgium.

However, the management contracts of both French and Flemish speaking public broadcasting institutions (RTBF and VRT) include the obligation to deliver the main evening news with a sign-language translation for the deaf. A 2006 agreement between the Flemish Community and VRT (Flemish Public Broadcaster) states that 95% of all Dutch/Flemish television programmes should have captions before the end of 2010. There does not appear to be any similar provision for TV captioning in the Walloon region.

Digital TV

It appears that no specific legislative provision has been made regarding digital TV.

Other initiatives

The Flemish-speaking national broadcaster (VRT) states on its website that subtitles are available on Belgacom and Telenet digital services.

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We are interested in receiving any corrections and/or additional information that may help us to update or improve our understanding of the current state of affairs in this country concerning the accessibility of TV broadcasting. This may concern information on relevant legislation, other policies and/or the level of accessibility actually achieved. Please enter your contribution in the “Leave a Reply” box below or send an e-mail to meac at empirica dot com.

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