OTT Accessibility Norms: Compliance Cost Burden

New Delhi, Nov 21 (PTI) Implementation of proposed accessibility norms for online curated content specifically for persons with hearing and visual impairment will lead to a high cost of compliance in several cases, which may even surpass their revenue and make them commercially unsustainable, industry body IAMAI said on Friday.

The information and broadcasting ministry in October floated draft accessibility standards for audio-visual content made available by publishers of online curated content (OTT platforms) to ensure that such content is accessible to persons with hearing and visual impairment.

The focus of these guidelines is not only on the content but also on the information and other support needed by persons with disabilities to enjoy such content.

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), which represents companies like Google, Netflix, Amazon, Meta, Sony Liv etc said that the proposed guidelines by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), could severely affect regional and smaller OTT platforms, owing to the extensive operational, technical, and financial obligations they are likely to impose.

"While the IAMAI welcomed the Union Government's intent to make digital entertainment more inclusive and accessible for persons with disabilities, it pointed out that given the limited scale of the platforms, the cost of compliance of the guidelines, if implemented, would, in several cases, surpass the revenue these platforms generate, making them commercially unsustainable," the statement said.


The IAMAI said that the draft's prescriptive and retrospective design requires urgent recalibration to avoid disproportionate burden across the industry.

It said that the sheer scale of retrofitting thousands of hours of existing catalogues and constantly reverifying content would drive costs to a prohibitive level for publishers of online curated content, especially in a high-cost and price-sensitive market like India.

"Given the general lack of interest in archival content, mandating accessibility for such content is unlikely to yield meaningful results," IAMAI said.

The industry body said that large share of OTT libraries consisted of licensed content, including regional titles, foreign content, and syndicated programming where platforms often did not hold the underlying rights to modify or create accessibility assets such as subtitles, audio descriptions, or signing.

"Imposing blanket obligations on platforms in such situations would create legal and contractual conflicts and would not be operationally workable," IAMAI said.