Ofcom Publishes Annual Report On Accessibility Of Electronic Programme Guides (EPGs)

Ofcom says that on-screen TV Guides help people plan their viewing and discover new programmes. However, people with visual impairments can find EPGs difficult or impossible to use, meaning their viewing choices are unnecessarily restricted, and they could miss out on finding programmes.

To help people with sight impairments navigate between TV channels more easily Ofcom introduced changes to its EPG Code so that certain features are incorporated as standard:

• text to speech: channel information, and the text necessary for navigation, are available as speech;
• filtering and highlighting: programmes with audio description, and those with signing, are highlighted or listed separately;