PortugalTelevision and On-Demand Audiovisual Media Services Act, accessibility of audiovisual media services
In force since .
An accessibility requirements rule binding public and private bodies.
- Instrument type
- an act of a legislature
What it requires
- If you are a television operator or an on-demand audiovisual media service provider under Portuguese jurisdiction, make the audiovisual media services you provide continuously and progressively more accessible to persons with special needs (Lei 27/2007, Art. 34-A(1)); this binds the public service broadcaster and private operators alike.
- Meet the accessibility obligations the ERC sets in its multi-year plan, such as subtitling, Portuguese sign language interpretation, audio description, spoken Portuguese and easily understood navigation menus, as the nature of the service requires (Art. 34-A(2)).
- Give the ERC all the information it needs to assess your compliance and to monitor the accessibility of your services (Art. 34-A(4)).
- Provide emergency information, public announcements in natural disasters and the messages of the highest officeholders that you transmit in a way accessible to persons with special needs, in particular by subtitling and by verbalising essential visual content (Art. 30(3)).
- If you are a distribution operator, allocate the capacity and technical resources that give persons with special needs easy access to the functionalities television and on-demand operators make available on your services (Art. 34-A(5)).
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
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Penalty structure
Article 76(1) fines a breach by any television or on-demand operator of the obligations in Article 30(3) and in Article 34-A(2) and (4) at EUR 20,000 to EUR 150,000, and Article 77(1) fines a breach of Article 34-A(5), the distribution operators' duty, at EUR 75,000 to EUR 375,000. Article 76(2) and Article 77(4) reduce the minimum and maximum limits to one third for local-coverage programme services, and Article 76(3) and Article 77(5) make negligence punishable with the limits halved. Article 77(3) adds a suspension of 1 to 10 days, according to the gravity of the offence, of the licence or authorisation of the television programme service or of the transmission of the programme, or of the availability of the whole catalogue or programme of the on-demand service, when a fine under Article 77(1) is applied. Article 81 doubles the minimum and maximum of the fine and of the suspension for a further offence committed less than a year after a sanction. The ERC investigates and its Regulatory Council imposes the fines (Article 93(2)).
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Minimum
- 20,000
- Currency
- EUR
- Fixed cap
- 375,000
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
ERC, the Entidade Reguladora para a Comunicação Social, which defines the operators' accessibility obligations by multi-year plan, monitors compliance and considers complaints (Lei 27/2007, Article 34-A(2), (4) and (7)), investigates the administrative offences, and through its Regulatory Council imposes the fines (Article 93(1) and (2)).
What this law does
Article 34-A(1) of Lei 27/2007, the Television and On-Demand Audiovisual Media Services Act, obliges television operators and on-demand audiovisual media service providers to make the audiovisual media services they provide continuously and progressively more accessible to persons with special needs. Lei 74/2020 inserted Article 34-A into the Act.
Article 1 of the Act states that it transposes Directive (EU) 2018/1808, which amends the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (2010/13/EU) and replaces its Article 7, under which Member States ensure that media services are made continuously and progressively more accessible to persons with disabilities.
Lei 74/2020, which transposes Directive (EU) 2018/1808 amending the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, entered into force 90 days after its publication on , so on (computed).
Article 34-A(2) has the ERC define, on the basis of a multi-year plan that raises the accessibility standards gradually, the obligations of those operators, in particular subtitling, Portuguese sign language interpretation, audio description, the use of spoken Portuguese and easily understood navigation menus.
Article 34-A(3) requires the ERC to consult the Instituto Nacional para a Reabilitação, the disability organisations and the operators, and to take the technical and market conditions into account. Article 34-A(4) requires the operators to give the ERC all the information it needs to assess compliance and to monitor the accessibility of the services.
Article 34-A(5) requires distribution operators to allocate the capacity and technical resources that give persons with special needs easy access to the functionalities the television and on-demand operators make available on their services. Article 34-A(7) has the ERC receive requests for information and consider complaints on the accessibility of audiovisual media services.
Article 30(3) requires emergency information, public announcements in natural disasters and the messages of the highest officeholders that audiovisual media services transmit to be provided in a way accessible to persons with special needs, in particular by subtitling and by verbalising essential visual content. The ERC's regulation report records that the multi-year plan it approved runs from to in two phases.
The same report states that Deliberação ERC/2025/421 approved the obligations of on-demand audiovisual media service operators for to . The ERC assesses the subtitling and sign language obligations of the plan each week and the audio description obligation each quarter.
For 2024 and 2025 the plan required the free-to-air generalist services of private operators to carry 22 hours a week of prepared subtitling, 12 hours a week of Portuguese sign language including one full evening news service a week, and 5 hours a quarter of audio description, with 60 percent of that programming between 08:00 and 00:00.
For the same period the plan required the generalist and thematic news services SIC Notícias, CNN Portugal, CMTV, Porto Canal, News Now and V+TVI to carry 2 hours a week of prepared subtitling or 4 hours of live subtitling, and 6 hours a week of news programmes with Portuguese sign language including one full news service.
Point 13 of the plan, Deliberação ERC/2021/317, required SIC and TVI, for 2024 and 2025, to make their studio programmes with Portuguese sign language available on their websites with the interpreter taking at least one quarter of the screen. Article 76(1) makes a breach by any television or on-demand operator of the obligations in Article 30(3) and Article 34-A(2) and (4) an administrative offence, and Article 77(1) does the same for a breach of Article 34-A(5).
Article 78 makes the operator in whose service the infringement was committed answer for it, and the distribution operator answer for the offences attributable to it. Article 81 doubles the minimum and maximum of the fine and of the suspension for an operator that commits a further offence less than a year after being sanctioned.
Article 93(1) and (2) give the ERC the supervision of the Act and the investigation of its administrative offences, and give the ERC's Regulatory Council the imposition of the fines, whose proceeds Article 93(3) shares 60 percent to the State and 40 percent to the ERC.
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