The ACMA has issued Telstra with a remedial direction for breaches of captioning rules related to its subscription television licence.
In February 2023 Telstra reported to the ACMA that it had not met the required captioning target for 14 channels broadcast by Telstra Pay TV Pty Ltd in the 2021-22 financial year.
The channels included Aurora, BBC Earth, Boomerang, CBeebies, CGTN Documentary, Discovery Turbo, DreamWorks, FOX Arts, FOX Docos, Foxtel Movies Drama, GOOD., Lifetime Movie Network, National Geographic Wild and TVSN.
The non-compliance occurred due to Telstra's failure to submit captioning category nominations for its movie and general entertainment services to the ACMA as required. Some categories allow for lower level of captioning targets, however when no category nomination is received by the ACMA, a 100 per cent captioning target must be applied.
In addition, Telstra submitted its annual compliance report for 2020-21 late, 65 days after the required date of 28 September 2021.
Under the terms of its remedial direction, Telstra must take actions directed to ensuring that it does not breach the captioning rules or is unlikely to breach these in the future. These include reporting to the ACMA by 1 June 2023 about the administrative processes and practices it has in place to enable compliance with its captioning obligations.
