Today charities Action on Hearing Loss (formerly RNID), Sense and the UK Council on Deafness are bringing together the UK’s leading TV broadcasters, regulators and people with hearing loss for a major conference to discuss the Future of Subtitling.
The day-long conference will discuss initiatives to improve and increase subtitling on both live TV and on-demand broadcasts. While members of the public, some of the 7.5 million people use subtitles to watch TV, will get the chance to find out how live subtitles are produced as well as discovering the latest innovations in subtitling provision, equipment and training.
Paul Breckell, Chief Executive of charity Action on Hearing Loss, said:
“Subtitling is the biggest issue that our supporters and public contact us about. There have been fantastic improvements in the amount of programmes with subtitles and we welcome the improvements in accuracy highlighted by Ofcom last week however, with the emergence of new technologies, there are still many challenges to overcome to ensure that the millions of people with hearing loss have equal access to the TV. We are still concerned that the overall quality of live subtitling is often not good enough for people with hearing loss, who should be able to enjoy TV like their hearing peers.’
Joff McGill, Sense’s Director of Information, Advice and Research, said:
“Without subtitles many deafblind people would not be able to enjoy TV – so the chance to focus on the innovations and solutions that will see more and better subtitling in the future is not one to be missed.”
The three charities will ask broadcasters and video on-demand service providers to continue the best practice established today, regularly working together and engaging with the public to gain feedback on the quality of subtitles aired.
