September 30, 2022 FY 2021 Results for Television Broadcasts with Captioning, Audio Description and Sign Language Interpretation

With consideration for elderly people and people with visual or hearing impairments, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) promotes the spread of people-friendly broadcasts, such as television programs with captioning, audio description and sign language interpretation. As a part of this, the FY 2021 results for broadcasts that were aired with captions, audio description or sign language have been compiled, and MIC has decided to release the results to the public^{(Note 1) (Note 2)}.

MIC surveyed achievements in terms of captioned, audio described and sign language broadcasts in FY 2021 and summarized the results as follows.
MIC formulated the Guidelines on Information Accessibility in the Broadcasting Sector in February 2018. Accordingly, since FY 2018, each broadcasting company has been making efforts based on the guidelines.

• *
  Hereinafter, values in the square brackets show a comparison with the previous fiscal year. The unit “pp” stands for percentage point(s).

Captioned broadcasts

(Reference 1) Japan Broadcasting Corporation, also known as NHK (General Channel, base broadcasting stations) ^{(Note 11)}

• Percentage of captioned programs in broadcast programs targeted by the guidelines: 94.2% [+1.8 pp]
• Percentage of captioned broadcast time in total broadcast time: 85.4% [+0.2 pp]

(Reference 2) NHK (General Channel, other broadcasting stations) ^{(Note 12)}

• Percentage of captioned programs in broadcast programs targeted by the guidelines: 91.6% [+1.4 pp]
• Percentage of captioned broadcast time in total broadcast time: 83.9% [+0.4 pp]

Audio described broadcasts

(Reference 3) NHK (General Channel, base broadcasting stations)

• Percentage of audio described programs in broadcast programs targeted by the guidelines: 14.8% [-1.9 pp]
• Percentage of audio described broadcast time in total broadcast time: 13.1% [-1.2 pp]

(Reference 4) NHK (General Channel, other broadcasting stations)

• Percentage of audio described programs in broadcast programs targeted by the guidelines: 14.8% [-2.0 pp]
• Percentage of audio described broadcast time in total broadcast time: 13.1% [-1.2 pp]

Sign language broadcasts

(Reference 5) NHK (General Channel, base broadcasting stations)

• Sign language broadcast time per week: 44 minutes [+9 minutes]

(Reference 6) NHK (General Channel, other broadcasting stations)

• Sign language broadcast time per week: 45 minutes [-9 minutes]

(Note 1)

When broadcasting multichannel programming, the broadcast time is the total for each channel.

(Note 2)

See appendices 1 to 4 (Japanese only) for the individual achievements of each broadcaster.

(Note 3)

A survey was conducted during a two 1-week sample. The sample weeks were, in principle, the first week of June (Monday, June 1—Sunday, June 7, 2020) and the first week of December (Monday, November 30—Sunday, December 6, 2020]. Periods 2 weeks before or after were selected if there was a specific reason.
The broadcast programs subject to the guidelines are those that are broadcast during a continuous 18-hour period selected from 6:00 to 1:00 the next day, except for the following programs:

• Programs that cannot be technically captioned (e.g., live programs where multiple people are having conversations at the same time)
• Foreign language programs
• Music programs that mainly consist of instrumental music performances
• Programs that cannot be captioned due to rights processing reasons

(Note 4)

Results for NHK (General Channel, Broadcasting Center) are from the broadcasting station that covers Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefectures.

(Note 5)

Results for key stations in Tokyo (5 stations) indicate an averaging of Nippon Television Network Corporation, Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, Inc., Fuji Television Network, Inc., TV Asahi Corporation and TV TOKYO Corporation.

(Note 6)

Results for sub-key stations in Osaka (4 stations) indicate an averaging of Mainichi Broadcasting System, Inc., Asahi Television Broadcasting Corporation, Kansai Television Co., Ltd. and Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation.

(Note 7)

Results for wide-area stations in Nagoya (4 stations) indicate an averaging of CBC Television Co., Ltd., Tokai Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Nagoya Broadcasting Network Co., Ltd. and Chukyo TV. Broadcasting Co., Ltd.

(Note 8)

Results for affiliated local stations (101 stations) indicate an averaging of terrestrial television broadcasters other than those listed in Note 4 to 7, 9, 11 and 12.

(Note 9)

Results for independent stations (13 stations) indicate an averaging of Tochigi Television Co., Ltd., Gunma Television Co., Ltd., Television Saitama Co., Ltd., Chiba Television Broadcasting Corporation, Tokyo Metropolitan Television Broadcasting Corporation, Television Kanagawa, Inc., Gifu Broadcasting System, Inc., Mie Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Biwako Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Kyoto Broadcasting System Co., Ltd., Sun Television Co., Ltd., Nara Television Co., Ltd. and Wakayama Telecasting Corporation.

(Note 10)

Results for BS stations affiliated with key stations in Tokyo (5 stations) indicate an averaging of Asahi Satellite Broadcasting Ltd., BS-TBS, Inc., BS TV TOKYO Corporation, BS Nippon Corporation and Fuji Satellite Broadcasting, Inc.

(Note 11)

Results for NHK (General Channel, base broadcasting stations) indicate an averaging of 7 stations, namely Osaka, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Sendai, Sapporo and Matsuyama base broadcasting stations.

(Note 12)

Results for NHK (General Channel, other broadcasting stations) indicate an averaging of 43 broadcasting stations, excluding those specified in Note 4 and 11.

(Note 13)

Broadcast programs subject to the guidelines are those that are broadcast between 7:00 and 24:00, except for the following programs:

• Programs that cannot be audio described due to rights processing reasons
• Programs that use 2 or more audio, such as bilingual broadcasts and sub-audio broadcasts
• 5.1-channel surround programs
• Programs with a main audio that leaves no spare time for audio description

(Note 14)

Sign language broadcast time per week = {Total sign language broadcast time per year / 365 days} × 7 days