The Association of the Deaf wants to make its voice heard through the No Billag initiative

As Schweiz am Wochenende writes, SRG is often a nuisance for the approximately 10,000 people born deaf and one million people with hearing impairments living in Switzerland. The reason: they are dependent on subtitles or translations into sign language and feel that the current offer is inadequate. For example, Corinne Parrat, author and former Miss Handicap, says that although she pays the full Billag contribution, she can hardly watch television programs normally. If nothing changes, Billag is an "unfair compulsory fee".

The Swiss Federation of the Deaf shares this opinion. Spokeswoman Martina Raschle told Schweiz am Wochende that there is not enough on offer for deaf people today. Nevertheless, there is a clear warning against a Yes to the No Billag initiative: if it is accepted, there would no longer be any offer at all and all previous efforts would be nullified, says Raschle. For this reason, educational work is being carried out in various deaf associations and a public campaign will be launched in January.

The demand on SRG is clear: if around half of broadcasting time is currently subtitled with spoken content, this should one day be 100 percent.

SRG is already working on an improvement and plans to expand subtitled coverage to 80 percent by 2022. According to spokesperson Edi Estermann, this coverage will cost CHF 17 million a year - almost twice as much as today (CHF 9.5 million).

According to the RTVA, regional television stations that receive fees have also had to offer subtitles since April. In contrast to the SRG, they have received praise from the Association of the Deaf. They have monitored the implementation and are "very satisfied" with the efforts of the 13 broadcasters, says Raschle. (hae)