Blind to try out talking TV

(First Edition)

A NEW system to help blind and partly-sighted people follow the plots of television programmes was launched yesterday by a consortium of broadcasters, electronics companies and the Royal National Institute for the Blind, writes Maggie Brown.

For the next four months 140 selected homes have been equipped with Audetel receivers which pick up a new data signal. This enhances selected BBC and ITV programmes by using trained 'commentators' to cover subtitles or action scenes without dialogue.

Pressure for the service, aimed at the United Kingdom's 1 million blind or partly-sighted people, follows the spread of subtitling, which helps deaf people to watch television.

Tony Aston, director of RNIB community services, said yesterday: 'Television is such an enormous cultural aspect of our lives, that being unable to watch it only underscores segregation.'

Mr Aston, who is blind, said the costs and commercial value of the system had yet to be assessed. The receivers being used in the pilot project cost about pounds 350 each.