Category: the Rant Board
HI all. below is a letter i wrote to sky. thoughts on this welcome.
Dear sir/Madam:
I have been a sky customer since 2004. I would like to first of all congratulate you on your adoption of audio description. I am writing however, to complain about the lack of accessibility to your sky boxes to blind sky customers. It is not, for instance, easy to set up audio description on the sky boxes. Contrary to popular belief, very few blind people have access to sighted help twenty four hours a day, and this is the case for me also. In an age where computers, and even mobile phones can give spoken feedback, I find it somewhat perplexing that sky, constantly innervating with their boxes and services, have not yet implemented a talking menu system for the sky plus box. I am a sky plus subscriber, and frequently use remote record on the sky site, as this is the only accessible way of using my personal video recorder. I feel this is unacceptable as I wish to have equal access to my sky box. It would be unreasonable, for instance, for sighted users of sky to have no printed menus on the box, so why is it deemed acceptable by sky for your blind customers to have lesser access. I frequently run out of recording requests on sky.com, and have to resort to a mobile phone to programme my box. This is expensive, around thirty five pence per recording request. This means that, because I have no access to the menu on the sky box, and only ten requests per day on the site, I am unfairly penalised by sky on account that I am blind, and am aggrieved that sky do not allow more recording requests to be made by their blind customers on the sky.com site while there is no talking EPG. I have frequently brought this up in conversation with yourselves and wish that this email be passed on to customer relations. I feel very passionate about this, as I feel television is for everyone, not just for sighted customers. Sky have been forced by law to implement Audio description on some of their channels, whereas subtitling is almost universal across the board. It seems to me that blind consumers lose out on nearly all fronts. No access to the sky box menu system, inferior alternative access to remote record facility via the website, and at the time of writing, even the most expensive way of programming a sky plus box is inoperable due to technical issues. These are my recommendations.
1. in the interim, between this date and the date sky have a talking EPG and menu system up and running for their sky plus boxes, sky increase or scrap altogether the ten recording request limit on sky.com for their blind customers. This would help blind people in that they can programme their boxes without unreasonable additional costs. This lifting of the ten recording request limit should not cost sky anything at all. I feel it is unreasonable for blind people to have to use a very expensive text service via mobile phone. The cost for this service indicate to me that it is not meant for general use, but blind people, due to the inflexibility of the remote record service on the sky site and the lack of access to the menu system on the sky plus box, are forced to use an expensive service for general everyday recording. This in my mind is discriminatory as well as unacceptable. Would it be seen as acceptable for sighted persons to programme their sky plus boxes from the website and be restricted to ten recording requests before having to resort to programming their boxes via a premium service via mobile phone? I think not.
Well thought out and I think that should get their attention.
if you ever get a response, please post it here
Very well written, although perhaps it could've been slimmed down a bit. Having said that, the overall tone of the letter was polite while putting across your points. As others have said here, good luck, and please let us know how you get on.
i feel these people need things spelt out to them in black and white simon. the atitude, oh, can't you get a friend to read the screen for you? is very prevalent in sky customer service, or so i've found.