The meaning of television as one of the most important and powerful forms of information media cannot be belittled. It is based on real time, and has great significance for building world views and furthering participation in society. In the information society, every EU citizen has the basic right to communication and information access. This principle is stated in, for example, the UN Convention on Rights of People with Disabilities. The fulfilment of this basic right requires that communications services are accessible for all people. This also includes the subtitling of domestic TV programmes, not only international programmes.
Of Finland’s population of 5.2 million, an estimated 740,000 people have hearing difficulties of varying degrees. 30,000 people cannot hear television programmes properly, even with hearing aids. This group of TV viewers also includes the deaf-blind and deaf people who use sign language. As the population ages, the number of hard of hearing people is clearly increasing. Of all the EU countries, Finland’s population is aging most rapidly. However, the development of user-oriented electronic services has not yet been effectively realised in Finland. A large part of the European Union faces the same challenge.
The Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE currently subtitles approximately 30% of its domestic programmes. There has been an additional 5% increase in subtitling in recent years. However, on commercial channels, domestic programmes are not subtitled at all. One cannot yet speak of equal treatment of TV viewer groups in Finland.
In many countries, obligations to subtitle domestic programmes are included in either legislation or licencing agreements. There is hope that subtitling obligations will come into effect in Finnish legislation as well. The Finnish TV and Radio law is being updated this year, and one goal is to enforce stricter subtitling obligations for TV channels, since subtitling percentages are higher in many other countries.
Determined lobbying has taken place in Finland for five years. However, development has been slow in Finland during the 21st century. This has been affected, in part, by the societal situation, and how the accessibility of communication media is prioritised on the political agenda. The question relates to the Design for All principle, which promotes participation and equality for all citizens, and the development of services which are accessible to all.
The European Commission’s directive on audiovisual services requires member states to retro-actively implement the realisation of accessible services. Article 3c of the directive declares that member states shall encourage media service providers within their legislative authority to confirm that their services will, by degrees, be accessible for people with seeing or hearing disabilities.
In European benchmarking, the set of criteria for the coverage of subtitled programmes must be clarified – does it cover, for example, all programme types and how will re-runs affect the total percentage of subtitled programmes? When evaluating its effectiveness, the Commission should also pay attention to the amount of subtitled programmes on internet television.

Sami VIRTANEN graduated in 1999 from the Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences (Finland), with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. His further education has included EU expert training, studies in sociology and political sciences. He has been a planning officer for the Finnish Federation of the Hard of Hearing since 2001. Virtanen’s work is related to accessibility and Design For All issues. His work seeks to exert influence and carry out lobby work with research and development in the field of accessibilty in mind. Sami Virtanen is a contact for different networks and groups, such as the Finnish Desing for All network,and the Finnish Inclusive Higher Education project and Monitoring group for accessibility in communications, of the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communication. For the past four years, Sami Virtanen has coordinated the Finnish subtitling network, whose aim it is to increase the amount of subtitling coverage of domestic programmes on the Finnish TV stations.