Deaf News: Bake Off airs without subtitles as Channel 4 suffers ‘tech issues’

Posted on September 28, 2021 by


Channel 4 headquarters in London, showing a giant '4' symbol outside an office. In the foreground is the top deck of a bus.

Deaf fans of The Great British Bake Off have taken to Twitter to complain about a lack of subtitles this evening, as Channel 4 continues to deal with technical difficulties.

The issues come after fire suppression systems were activated at Red Bee Media’s Broadcast Centre in West London on Saturday.

The company, which provides access, distribution, playout and post-production services for Channel 4, also works with other national broadcasters such as ITV and the BBC.

In a statement posted to Twitter at the weekend, Red Bee said: “We confirm that all staff at our Broadcast Centre in West London were safely evacuated following activation of the fire suppression systems this evening. As a result of this incident and the automatic safety measures set in motion at the time, several services originating from the Broadcast Centre have been disrupted.

“London Fire Brigade attended the scene, and once they had determined that the building is safe, people were allowed to return to the building. We are continuing to work to restore all services and remedy any issues caused by this incident.”

On Sunday, the organisation said they are continuing to “work towards full service recovering” and are “investigating what triggered the fire suppression systems”.

They added that any statements around the cause of the disruption will be given once they have concluded their investigations, and have a “full picture” of what happened.

However, issues were still reported on Tuesday, when subtitles failed to appear on Channel 4’s popular baking programme. People soon took to Twitter to raise concerns:

The issues were acknowledged by Channel 4 prior to Bake Off being broadcast, with the channel tweeting: “Sadly we’re still experiencing some tech issues which means some viewers may have problems watching our channels or access services.

“Sorry for the ongoing disruption – we’ll let you know here as and when we have updates.”

Photo: Diamond Geezer/Flickr.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is a Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.

Update – 29.09.21: In a statement to The Limping Chicken, a spokesperson for Ofcom – the broadcast regulator – said: “We have received complaints about ongoing issues with TV subtitling and audio description, following an earlier incident at Red Bee Media’s broadcast centre in west London.

“Given the concerning impact on people with hearing and visual impairments, we are in regular contact with the affected broadcasters to monitor the steps being taken to restore these access services as quickly as possible.”

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Posted in: achannel4subtitles, deaf news