Ofcom have announced that they will require TV broadcasters to report on the quality of their live subtitling for the first time.
The regulator is also proposing a time delay on live subtitles so there is no longer a delay between speech and the subtitles appearing on screen.
Up until now, broadcasters have only been required to report on the amount of subtitling they provide.
The regulator says that while pre-prepared subtitling is generally of a good quality, deaf and hard of hearing viewers have made clear that there are continuing problems with live TV subtitling.
By forcing broadcasters to report on the quality of their subtitles, Ofcom hope broadcasters will be incentivised to make improvements, and that viewers will be able to monitor their progress.
The reports will be published every six months, and will cover the speed and accuracy of subtitling, the delay between speech and subtitles, technical failures, and most importantly perhaps, the number of pre-recorded programmes that are delivered late, resulting in live subtitles of a lower quality than pre-recorded subtitles.
Enjoying our eggs? Support The Limping Chicken:
The Limping Chicken is the world's most popular Deaf blog, and is edited by Deaf journalist, screenwriter and director Charlie Swinbourne.
Our posts represent the opinions of blog authors, they do not represent the site's views or those of the site's editor. Posting a blog does not imply agreement with a blog's content. Read our disclaimer here and read our privacy policy here.
Find out how to write for us by clicking here, and how to follow us by clicking here.
The site exists thanks to our supporters. Check them out below:
- BSL Zone: TV programmes in BSL for the Deaf community
- Deaf Umbrella: sign language interpreting - find out about listening fatigue.
- Bellman & Symfon: home alerting solutions, including the mobile phone transceiver!
- SignVideo: Instant BSL video interpreting online
- SignHealth: check out the BSL health library
- 999 BSL: call 999 in an emergency, in BSL
- Appa: Looking for RSLIs, TSLIs and CSWs, apply here!
- Mary Hare School: Education for deaf children and young people
- Signly: Adding BSL to websites
- Signworld: Learn BSL online!
- DCAL: world-class research into deafness, cognition and language
- Action Deafness: “A Deaf-Led Charity” – interpreting & community support services
- Sign Solutions: Instant access to Interpreters, training and BSL translation nationwide
- InterpretersLive: On demand BSL video interpretation
- Lipspeaker UK: specialist lipspeaking support
- Performance Interpreting: BSL interpreting at concerts
- National Deaf Children's Society: The leading charity for deaf children
M Williams
May 17, 2013
at last!!! but will this make an impact or was it a talking paying the lip service ?…..
robertmduncan
May 17, 2013
They should demand quality checks on all subtitling.There are still far too many mistakes on pre-prepared subtitling. As literacy is still a big challenge for many Deaf people, if the subtitles they see are wrong, but they assume they’re right because it’s a highly literate (?) subtitler who’s done them, this compounds their disadvantage.
Linda Richards
May 17, 2013
Hallelujah! But how long between logging the mistakes and fixing the problem?
If broadcasters report that they have hit 62% accuracy, and had typos, mistakes, etc., with the other 38%, what will actually be done to ensure that these are worked upon and improved? I’m not interested in a report which list such statistics. I want a quality service. And there’s been an increase in the number of subtitle errors on pre-recorded programmes which were not “‘as live’ due to late delivery” so there’s no excuse.
And when will Ofcom force the broadcasters to do something about the dire quality of in-vision interpreting or translation? As a Deaf viewer working in the media, I used to cringe at seeing other Deaf people who were clearly not bilingual and completely missing the mark …. Later, I stopped feeling like that and started to feel insulted at what was being offered to me as a viewer. This is true also of the ‘service’ by hearing interpreters and sometimes of the in-vision interpreting/translation on See Hear. BSL recognition is meaningless when we have such poor examples of our language on what is, ironically, the best medium for it.
There used to be a direct link to the broadcasters but not now. Remember, a large number of broadcasters have their ‘access’ servcies delivered for them by external companies who have no idea what is happening as they can’t communicate, sample or assess the work and the broadcasters themselves don’t have this skill base or quality control either. I think if the broadcasters knew just how poorly their programmes were being translated, they would be horrified. Under legislation such as the Sale of Goods Act or the Trading Standards Act, the providers of ‘access’ services [including in-vision signing] have breached the law time and again.
Time for wholesale changes and improvements. Time also for Ofcom to have in-depth and wide-reaching dialogue with Deaf BSL users about the provision that their own regulatory position is supposed to protect.
Hartmut Teuber
June 1, 2013
I agree wholeheartedly your comments. The same should also be said of CC work on US Televisions. Now it is time to work on quality. We have been too concerned on the quantity aspect to get as much CC as possible on all TV shows.
I think, we have a way to correct it. The captioning firms in the US are small private companies and we can see their names in the credits who did the work. We can approach them with a list of bloopers and inane additions (f.e.the caption “it’s raining” appears, while the screen already shows a rainy scene, or “Telephone rings” and then shows someone picking up a phone) in their work, and failing this, publish the record and communicate with the broadcasters, who will not contract with them.
Quality control of their work is absolutely necessary.
If the pre-recorded segments are delivered late, it MUST be broadcast late.
Broadcasters must remember, it is TeleVISION not TeleBLAHBLAHBLAH!
John David Walker
May 17, 2013
It would be good to know what the performance indicators will be and how they will be evaluated.
iheartsubtitles
May 17, 2013
Good news. I wonder what method will be used to measure the quality.
Hartmut Teuber
May 19, 2013
John David, don’t ask this stupid quesion! If you just mute your TV completely to check upon the quality of the visual information, you will immediately recognize the problem. Why are you so auditorilly obsessed?!
Live captioning has naturally its problems, depending on the speaking patterns of the on-screen speakers. But there OUGHT to be editing afterward to edit out all the faulty renderings of the spoken verbiage, You ought to presume, the segment will be rebroadcast or placed in the Internet. Therefore, shape up, you TV folks, make it really VISUAL!
Quality ought also to be laid on captioning/subtitling the blahblahblah components every time. Far too many personnel are used on the sound aspect, neglecting the vision requirement of the non-hearing population. One must not forgot, it is TeleVISIION, not TeleBLAHBLAHBLAH!