[/floatr]The Asahi reports (Japanese) that the Government has reviewed its policy of giving monetary assistance to adult television broadcasters who provide subtitles or sign language for hard of hearing viewers. Particularly mentioned in the article is Paradise Television's one hour "Naked News Station" which has a regular five minute "Naked Sign Language News" segment. For more on that company's output, look no further than Captain Japan's piece "Paradise TV Strives for Stupidity, Sex". Currently, decisions on subsidies are made by the National Institute of Communications and Technology who view applications twice a year. This agency has money available to meet half the cost of providing subtitles and sign language for programming which meets its requirements. The review process does not, however, look at the content of the programmes when approving funding. Paradise received around 250,000 yen for regular broadcasts in the second half of the fiscal year and a recent special. Since 1993, the agency has dispersed over 4.5 billion yen covering nearly 90,000 programmes by all broadcasters although there is no breakdown of how many were of an adult nature. The policy has now been reconsidered and money will in future only be available for programming suitable for all ages. Paradise TV say that they provide the sign language segment because they believe that the deaf should be able to enjoy the same television as everybody else and plan to continue the service.



