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Radio and TV: Problems and strategies for the deaf and hard-of hearing

As technology has advanced regular television and radio have become increasingly problematic for people with hearing problems. There are three reasons.

One reason is that so much is in stereo with all sorts of sound effects. Wonderful as these must be for people with normal hearing who can separate out the speech, problems with identifying the direction of sound result in all the sound blurring together so that speech becomes unintelligible.

A second problem is the apparent belief by those who put on the programmes that sound effects have to be loud to be enjoyed whereas whispered speech carries dramatic effect. As a result, people with sensitivity to sound sit with one finger on the volume control and the other on the mute button. I have actually worn out three controllers, while the original television was still working, just because of my excessive use of the volume control.

A third reason is that with so many channels now available, information is packed so much more tightly into what is broadcast that some necessarily has to be discarded. Deaf people's ears miss enough "sound detail" anyway without the broadcasters removing more.

So I do not have any really successful strategies for listening to the radio and television, and what I do is so obvious that all deaf people probably do it anyway.

• I do not attempt to listen to a play on the radio because I cannot well enough distinguish the voices of the different actors.
• I do attempt recorded films on television because it is surprising how much one can pick up from the action alone. When it is obvious from the action that something significant is being said, I press the pause button and ask someone to repeat for me. (Obviously I can't do this with live programmes.) If no-one is around, that's just too bad.
• I like radio documentaries where there is a single well-spoken presenter, but I do wish that the sound effects of the location could be curtailed.
• Some programmes created specially for the World Service are easier to understand because the presenters make a point of speaking clearly for an audience whose first language is not English.